


Space Garden

by Yolashillinia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Divergent ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 62,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27025294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yolashillinia/pseuds/Yolashillinia
Summary: Bi Space Dad meets Space Plant OC; fluff ensues. Originally just a fic to give Shiro love and cuddles, it evolved into taking a look at S3-7 and rewriting S8 from scratch to fit my own taste. Written 2016-2019.
Relationships: Allura/Lance (Voltron), Ezor/Zethrid (Voltron), Shiro/Female OC, eventual Acxa/Lotor, one-sided Keith/Shiro
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. The Green Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this before I saw S2, so these first four chapters don't really fit within the plot of the show. It's somewhere within the first couple seasons, anyway.

Part 1: The Green Girl

“No, no, no…” The planet was rushing towards him, but he only saw glimpses of it through the crackling, static-filled displays. Whatever gravitational/accelerational compensators the Black Lion had were failing, and he was being pressed back into his seat. The damage they’d taken was too much, and they were crashing, he had no control, the Black Lion had no manoeuverability, even if he’d been able to exert any pressure with his left arm. “Come on, buddy…”

He clipped the emergency safety belt around his chest and prayed, bracing for impact.

He was… warm, and… mostly comfortable. Aches and pains everywhere, his ribs, his legs, his shoulders. Not his artificial arm. The wounds on his left arm still stabbed into him, but not as raw and searing as before. He could hear birds of some kind, distantly, and the wind though leaves, as if through an open window, and a soft scratching sound closer by. He could smell wood, and grass, and sunlight, and other, stranger, fainter smells – it suggested some kind of disinfectant. His mouth tasted foul; he needed water, badly.

He could feel rough blankets under his fingers, could feel bandages wrapped around his head, bandages wrapped around his left arm. His body wasn’t encased in armour anymore, but soft clothes that felt like wool. He was definitely lying in a real bed of some kind, soft and giving in an oddly crackly way. Would his eyes open?

Yes, but it was brighter than he’d been expecting, and he shut them again with a grunt. He’d caught a glimpse of wood above him, a wooden ceiling, maybe?

He heard a gasp, over on his left, and cautiously opened them again. He wasn’t expecting an enemy, not when he’d clearly been rescued and taken care of. Over on his left, squinting against the light, he saw…

A female, young-looking, but she was green. Green skin, green hair – was it waving on its own? Hair didn’t move like that, even in the wind, and there wasn’t that much wind in this… hut. Tiny house thing. She was staring at him with blue eyes with pupils like four-pointed stars. And she was wearing a pastel pink tank top and shorts, with a yellow scarf.

“Ah! Um, uh, hello…?” the girl – woman – green alien female managed to say, trying something that resembled a smile. It was a pretty handy thing that most life in the universe seemed to have developed common body structure, common facial features, and common expressions…

He blinked dazedly at her. “Hello.” They were in a tiny house thing, as he’d noted briefly before, made of wood, with wooden furniture carved in a simple fashion. There was a little window across from him, through which he could see blue sky, and an open door a bit to the left, through which he could see a sunlit grassy path and the hint of a small village of wooden huts, and the girl was sitting at a desk with a big open window in front of her with sunlight streaming through soft white curtains. Beyond her was something that looked like a fridge, and another window, and cabinets. One of them was open, revealing small bottles and jars. They didn’t look like food, more like medicine.

“Oh, oh, you’re awake! For real this time! Oh, and your voice is deeper than I was expecting,” she cried, and scribbled something down on the desk in front of her. Her hair was definitely moving on its own. There was an extra pencil in it. She turned back to him, her shoulders scrunching up in a shy manner. “H-hi! H-how are you feeling?”

“Um. I… I’m all right.”

“C-can you be more specific? I’ve never worked on a h-human before, and um… I-I don’t know if I missed something…?”

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he said slowly. “Lot of bruises, I think, and those cuts, but you seem to have taken care of them. This bed is comfortable. I could use some water?”

“Mm, mmhmm?” She scribbled more notes, then got up and brought him a water bottle with a bendy spout so he didn’t have to sit up to drink. As he washed out his mouth and sucked down the cool refreshing drink he’d been craving, she went and perched back on the edge of her chair, staring at him curiously, her hair curling up around her head as if it was also curious.

“You a doctor?” he asked.

The green of her cheeks turned slightly brighter, a little more yellowish – was that a blush? “Y-yes, I’m still in training, but I’m the most senior student here s-so they let me take care of you as my final project. Y-you don’t mind, right?”

He managed a reassuring smile. “No. You’re doing fine. I think. I’m not a doctor.”

She giggled awkwardly. “Th-thanks. I mean, I’ve heard of humans, but everyone knows they haven’t developed interspacial travel yet so, like, you’re… kind of mythical, and the chance to work on one…”

“Guess I should be glad I didn’t wake up in some kind of lab, huh?”

She flinched, her bright expression dimming for a moment, even though he’d meant it teasingly. “We don’t believe in that.”

“You seem kind of flustered,” he said, trying to help her calm down.

The blush returned, much stronger. “W-well, it’s… not every day a… an exotic handsome alien falls from the sky in a robot quadruped.”

He laughed, wincing at the ache in his ribs, and felt a blush spreading over his own face. _‘Exotic handsome alien’? How flattering_. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me,” he said, and began trying to sit up. “Who are you? Your people, and you specifically…?”

“Oh, no, don’t get up yet!” She sprang from her chair and darted towards him; he flinched from her rapid approach, but her small hands were on his shoulders, pressing him back down, and he relented. But she hadn’t missed the flinch, either, and she was standing awkwardly above him now, holding her hands as if afraid to touch him. “I just… You’ve had a concussion, and you’ve been unconscious for a very long time, and, um…”

“It’s okay,” he told her. Sitting up was too much work right now anyway, especially with his arm. “I was just startled.”

“O-okay. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She seemed spastic with nervous energy, and she fidgeted with her scarf. “So… yeah, who are you?”

Oh, right!” She jumped, then went to drag her chair closer to his bed., then checked his pulse, pulled down his eyelids and looked critically into his eyes. “I think you’re doing okay for now… Um, let me see. You’re on the planet of Teler, and we call ourselves Telerans. My name is Elslince, and I’m a doctor-in-training for the Resistance. And you are?”

Hey, alien names that he could pronounce. Well, he could pronounce ‘Allura’ and ‘Coran’ and ‘Altea’, too, but he’d come across some… He test mumbled ‘Teler’ and ‘Elslince’ under his breath just to be sure before he answered her question. “Ah, you can call me Shiro. I’m… Hm. I’m a Paladin of Voltron.”

Blue eyes widened. “Oh, what’s that? It sounds important.”

Their legend hadn’t had time to spread to this planet, it seemed. Well, the galaxy was a big place. “Voltron is the Defender of the Universe. It’s many thousands of years old, and it was lost for a time, but my friends and I found it again just recently. It’s…” This always sounded silly. “It’s a group of five robot lions that combine to form a giant robot man. It’s the most powerful weapon in the universe.”

She made a grossed out face. “Ew, weapons.” She gasped. “Wait, so that robot quadruped we found you under… that’s a weapon?” Her face turned horrified, maybe a little frightened, too.

“Wait, didn’t you say you’re a member of a Resistance?”

She drew herself up as if offended. “I am a doctor. In training. When I’m through, I swear never to touch a weapon or to harm a living being through wilful intent, only to heal any and all who have need of my skill. Even though I work for the Resistance and support them with all my spirit.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, you know, that’s really great. Doctors are important.” Maybe not so much on the Castle of Lions, with their… ‘magic healing tubes’, as Hunk put it, but back on Earth… yeah, they still needed doctors.

“Don’t patronize me,” she said with a pout.

“I’m not trying to, honest. I’m sorry for offending you?”

She blinked, then looked guilty. “I’m sorry for getting offended. I guess you’re doing something similar to the Resistance, then?”

“Who’s the Resistance… resisting?”

“Zarkon,” and even her open face grew stony as she said the name.

He nodded. “Yeah, we’re fighting him. Trying to defend as many people as we can against him. Trying to free those he’s oppressing, disrupt his troops, his ships, trying to take him down one piece at a time.”

“Is that how you were injured, how you came to crash here?” she asked softly, with a glace at his injured arm.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for getting upset about weapons,” she mumbled, dropping her head. “What you’re doing is just as important. I’m personally 100% against them, but we need them to fight Zarkon, I realize, it’s just… I wish we didn’t have to.”

“I wish we didn’t either,” he said. “We’re doing our best to do it quickly, so that fewer people suffer for less time, but…”

“There’s only five of you,” she said. “I get it. Five of you… against an already-conquered galaxy.”

“It’s a tall order,” he said, smiling wistfully. He was starting to feel sleepy again.

She noticed. “Well, um, I’m going to let you get some rest, okay? Concussions aren’t good for brains no matter your species, and you need lots of rest before moving around again.”

“Okay,” he said. “I… good night?”

“Is that how humans say it?” she asked, with a giggly smile and a glance out the sunlit windows. “Sleep well.”

“Thanks,” he said, and closed his eyes.

When he woke again, she was leaning over him, frowning. She jumped back, and her hair jumped back, when she saw he was awake. “O-oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you!”

“I don’t think you did,” he mumbled groggily. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, I think you were dreaming. Your… your REM was crazy, and you were mumbling something. Something about Zarkon, I think. Were you dreaming?”

“I don’t remember,” he said. He couldn’t even remember what the tone of the dream was, if he’d been angry, or scared, or anything. “Can I have another drink?”

After a couple days, she let him out of bed. He could probably have gotten up sooner, but she was clearly worried about working on a kind of person she’d barely even heard of before, let alone met. He could understand. He’d be nervous too, if a green person suddenly landed on Earth and he didn’t know how they worked.

He went first to check on the Black Lion. It had parked itself nearby, in a position of repose, and its force field wasn’t up. It must trust the people here. Well, he trusted the people here, and he and his Lion shared a bond, so that made sense, right? They didn’t seem to have messed with the Lion at all, although every day it seemed the children of the village came to play under it, staring up in fascination at its sleek metal joints.

He tried to send a message home to the Castle of Lions, but he had no contact. He’d have to try again once he left the planet’s atmosphere.

The village was larger than it looked, hidden in thick woods in a little valley between mountains. There were even some more high-tech looking buildings, some kind of synthetic material painted in brown and green to blend in. She showed him around, showed him off to the other people in the village, took him to meet her teachers, who poked and prodded him even more thoroughly than she had. They were all green, with brown or green or yellow eyes with star-shaped pupils, and they all had long, expressive hair like her.

But the important parts of the day for him were the walks they went on, not even for his recovery – he was recovered, he was pretty sure, besides his arm, and that was just a matter of time. No, it was just because they ended up talking about any old thing and hours went by when they did. It was something he hadn’t done since before his capture, he felt, and it was nice just to be there with someone for once. Sure, he’d had moments with the team, with Pidge, with Keith, but never for very long – there was always something to do.

And she seemed really interested in him beyond professional curiousity, and he had to say he felt rather the same. “So… your hair. It’s so short! How do you cope?”

“Huh? What do you mean? Like how yours moves on its own?”

“It’s not moving on its own, I move it,” she said. “You really can’t do that with yours?”

“No, I can’t,” he said.

“Can I touch it again? It’s so weird! But it’s really soft. I like it. Why is it two colours? Is that normal for humans?” _What did she mean by ‘again’?_ She’d probably touched it while he was out cold, when she was patching him up.

He chuckled and bent down so that she could run her fingers through his white forelock. She hesitated before she did. “No, not really. When humans get old, their hair slowly turns white or grey from whatever colour it was before, but this was brought on by stress.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” She frowned, thinking hard, her fingers still stroking his hair, venturing to the top of his head, where it was even shorter, and to the sides of his head, where it was slowly outgrowing its military crop. He needed to shave it again. He tried not to react to the sensation of small textured fingers brushing his scalp, but he caught his breath anyway. She didn’t seem to notice.

“So how do you control your hair?” he asked, trying to keep the conversation moving. “Does it have nerve endings in it? Does it ever break off or fall out?” It really wasn’t much thicker than regular human hair.

She pulled her hands back from his head and held up a finger, and a green tress curled around it. “Sure, it breaks, it’s normal. It doesn’t hurt, no, there aren’t nerve endings anywhere in it. So sometimes it’s difficult for us to feel what we’re picking up, but we can’t carry heavy things with our hair anyway. I’m not sure if I can describe how we control it, if you don’t already know…”

“Okay,” he said. “You can even carry things in it, that’s amazing.”

“Well, you know, pencils and small tools and things. I can’t imagine not being able to use it in my profession. Most people use it constantly.”

“So I guess there aren’t a lot of bald people on this planet.”

“What’s bald?” She looked up at him with adorable innocence.

“Um, when someone has no hair on their head at all. It happens naturally to a lot of male humans, especially when they get older.”

“Oh, no!” She seemed quite shocked. “That’s going to happen to you? I’m so sorry!”

“Probably not me. My dad had a full head of hair last time I saw him…” and he wasn’t going to see him anytime soon. He probably thought Shiro was dead. _Don’t think about depressing things in front of pretty girls._ “…and baldness is a genetic trait. Anyway, we can’t use our hair for much besides… attracting mates, I guess, so it’s not a big deal. In fact, some people shave it off on purpose for aesthetic reasons.”

“That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” she declared.

He laughed. “Okay, so can I touch your hair, then?” He held out his left hand, palm up, towards her.

She glanced away, and the yellow blush returned.

“No? Is it something rude to Telerans?”

“N-no, it’s just…”

He raised an eyebrow. “You touched my hair.”

“Y-yeah, I guess I did, didn’t I? But I was professionally curious!”

“Can’t I be curious about your hair? Even if I’m not a professional?”

She grumbled to herself, pouting again, but tendrils of her hair crept towards his hand and twined around his fingers. It wasn’t as soft as it looked, kind of a dry, scaley feeling. The loops coiled and shifted, tugging slightly at his hand, squeezing his fingers gently. It was extremely strange and bizarrely intimate.

It seemed she felt the same, because she wasn’t making eye contact again, and the yellow blush was stronger than ever.

“That’s really neat,” he said, trying to put her at ease. “Thanks for showing me.”

“Y-you’re welcome,” she answered as she drew her hair away again, but it was a while before their conversation returned to its normal flow.

Later, he asked about the Resistance, finally. “How long have you guys been fighting Zarkon?”

“About fifty years,” she said. “We’d just developed interstellar travel, begun meeting new species, and it brought his attention. I can’t say how well my people stack up galactically in terms of warfare capabilities, but we have definitely been losing.” Her expression was hard, a mixture of anger and pain.

“Fifty years is a long time,” he said.

“Ten thousand years is a long time,” she answered, referring to Voltron. “Fifty years is nothing in comparison.” She looked away from him. “This valley is one of the last few hideouts we have to train in peace. All our doctors and medics get trained here before we go to assist the fighters. We’re completely outmatched, but we’re not giving up yet.” Her head dropped. “But it’s probably only a few more years before we’re completely overrun. Maybe only a few months. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”

And yet she hated weapons so passionately. “What happened to everyone who’s not fighting?”

“Those who are captured or conquered become enslaved, forced to work in big horrible factories to make more weapons for the Galra Empire. They’re kept on very tight leashes: constantly watched, living in prisons, and they _cut their hair_.” Even if it didn’t physically hurt the Telerans, it seemed a big enough part of their culture he understood her expression of horror. “But that’s not why I hate them.”

“Why do you hate them?” he asked in a low voice.

“Because they killed my sister,” she whispered, shoulders rigid, hair pulled back and coiling between her shoulderblades.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“She fought in the Resistance. She was the brave one. She had the courage to pick up a weapon and aim it at the enemy. And they killed her. She died fighting them. …It was always our plan, you know, that we join together, and I patch her up after her fights. But she was older, and couldn’t wait… and now I’m trying to follow our plan without her counterpoint.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Was it recent?”

“Two years ago,” she said. Two years ago, he’d still been on Earth, training for the Kerberos mission.

Her shoulders were shaking, her fists were clenched, her hair coiled in knots, and she was definitely not looking at him, trying to show strength in the face of the alien guest. Time to change the subject. “You said this valley is a place you can study in peace, and it’s really lovely. Is your whole planet like this… when it’s not being invaded?”

She smiled wanly, recognizing his strategy, relaxing a little. “So I’m told, or at least large portions of it. The parts us Telerans like to live in. Or at least it used to be.”

“Is there anyone in your village who could tell me more? I’d like to know as much as I can before I go back.”

“I guess you could ask the leader, Bormon. I follow the news, but I don’t like talking about it. I’ll have to get over that when they deploy me, I guess.”

“I’ll talk to him, then. Thank you. And… thank you for telling me.”

She mumbled something in return.

He did notice that she wouldn’t touch his artificial arm, and avoided it if at all possible. Was it because she could tell it was Galra? Was it because most of the stuff here was made of natural materials and his arm was definitely not a natural part of him? Surely she wasn’t bothered by prosthetics, as a doctor. He didn’t ask, not now, and tried to keep it away from her. Sometimes he forgot, since he was right-handed. But he did his best.

It had been a week since he’d crashed on the planet – two days unconscious, two days in bed, and another three days up and about. He was as better as he needed to be to get home. The team would be worrying about him, since he hadn’t been able to contact them yet. He’d spent far too long distracted by Elslince and her starry blue eyes. “It’s time for me to leave,” he told her that evening, having changed back into his armour, his helmet under his arm.

She grimaced regretfully. “I knew you wouldn’t be here for long.” But her bright smile returned. “Thanks for letting me work on you! It’s been an extremely educational experience and I’m sure to pass my final exam.”

“I’m glad,” he said sincerely, and they were both trying not to think of what her future would be afterwards. “I’m grateful you took care of me.”

“And it’s been really nice to meet you,” she said. “I never thought I’d meet a human, ever, and you’ve been really nice. I hope all humans are like you.”

“Every human’s different, but a lot of them are good people,” he said, with a chuckle. “And it’s been really nice to meet you, too.” He paused awkwardly, then reached for her hand. “…Look, Elslince… As soon as I can, I’ll come back for Teler. …For you and your people.”

She glanced up at him, her hand limp in his. “Others have been fighting Zarkon longer. Have been enslaved longer.”

“Yes, but your people haven’t given up yet. That’s a legitimate reason to help you, too. If all the peoples in the universe oppose Zarkon, there’s nothing that can stop us. And Voltron is on your side.”

“Someday I’ll see it,” she said with a little smile.

“Someday soon,” he promised, letting go of her hand. “I mean it. As soon as I can.” He had spent some time with the village leader, asking about the state of the overall galaxy, but even with his prior knowledge he still didn’t know enough to make a concrete campaign plan. He was a lieutenant, not a general. And he wasn’t even that anymore, not by Galaxy Garrison standards, not since he’d been captured.

Whatever. He’d figure it out. He had to. He’d feel awful leaving these good people to fight Zarkon by themselves, when she said they might not last a few more months.

He’d feel awful leaving those pretty blue eyes to face war and death alone. Well, not alone, she’d be with her people, but… without him to help. She’d already lost her sister. Was this how Hunk felt about Shae? Except with less denial?

“Maybe I’ll see you then,” she said, with a little smile.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t think of anything good to say. “Well, see you then.” He offered his hand again to shake. He wanted to hug her, but that was too intimate for their short acquaintance, and he didn’t know what her species thought about hugs.

But this time, she took his hand firmly with both hands and some of her hair. “Be safe.”

“I will. You too.”

The planet looked awful as the Black Lion rose through the atmosphere into space. The little patch of sunny green he’d come from was so small compared to the rest of the planet, large swathes of which he could see from space had been burned or covered with smog. He felt anger coil in his gut. To cause such destruction on such a tremendous scale… That couldn’t stand. Not against such a people… not against anyone.

A proximity alert went off. Galra fighters were bearing down on him. He wanted to vape every one of them, but he had to get out of here. He had to return with Voltron. Had to make a plan, find out how to meet with the Resistance leaders, find the best use of their limited resources, how to use Voltron most effectively in a ground war…

The best use of his resources now was outrunning his pursuers. He gunned the thrusters, heading deeper into space, skimming past the laser blasts aimed at his tail. “Castle of Lions, come in. Can you read me?”


	2. I Made a Promise

Part 2: I Made a Promise

“Shiro! You’re all right!” Allura was first to reach him as he disembarked from his Lion, back at the Castle. “We were so worried about you, what happened?”

“I was worried about you guys too,” he said. “I crashed onto a planet called Teler and it took a while to convince the doctor there to let me go.” It was close enough to the truth. “I’m glad you all made it back to base safely.”

“Welcome back!” Pidge chirped. “We were having trouble locating the Black Lion using the castle’s power, so I’ve been working on a personal tracking device that should let us locate each other in case of emergencies like this.” She waved a little metal device at him. “It’s dormant until we call each other so it won’t interfere with normal operating… things.”

“Um.” He blinked at it. “That’s great, Pidge, but my first thought is that Zarkon might find a way to use that against us, even with the dormant feature. Maybe we can use it on something else, not the Lions?”

“Hmm. I suppose you’re right. I’ll keep working on it.”

“So any cute girls on this planet?” Lance asked, leaning casually on Hunk’s shoulder.

Shiro hesitated. The answer was ‘yes’ but that was not the answer to give Lance… yet. “What’s important is that they’re still fighting Zarkon, and have been for the past fifty years. I think we should make it a priority to help them, gain some allies who still have some autonomy in this fight.”

Lance’s eyes narrowed, and he circled Shiro, stroking his chin. “You didn’t answer the question, and you immediately started campaigning to help them. I think there are cute girls on the planet, and you want to keep them all to yourself!”

“Lance,” Allura tried to break in.

“I’m more interested in what kind of local food there is, if they haven’t all been taken over by green goo and Galra cooking,” Hunk said.

“Vegetarian,” Shiro said. “Guys-”

“C’mon, Shiro! Own up!”

Shiro closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. “Yes, Lance, there are female Telerans you might find attractive.”

Lance pumped both fists in the air. “Whoo! Okay, let’s go!” That was easy.

If Lance ever met Elslince, she’d… actually, he didn’t know what she’d do. When he’d told her about the team, she’d laughed delightedly at every one of his descriptions – including Lance.

It wasn’t important. “But let’s look at the big picture, here. Coran, can you show us Teler’s location?”

“Sure thing, Shiro! It’s right over………………… here.”

“That’s not so far,” Keith said softly. “But you still haven’t come up with your plan for saving the galaxy, why start here?”

“They haven’t been conquered yet, in territory or in spirit. They’ve been fighting Zarkon for fifty years, they’d be a good starting point to learning more about his forces, his strategies, what the state of the galaxy is like. And they can help us liberate other planets, since it will take less time for them to recover.”

The team almost universally crossed their arms, unconvinced.

Shiro sighed heavily and looked at the floor. “…and I made a promise to the doctor with the pretty blue eyes and I’d come help her people soon.”

“A- _ha!_ ” Lance said, pointing dramatically at him. “I knew it!”

“Heehee, I knew there was another reason,” Pidge said. “You’re cute when you blush!”

“Hmm, you’ve got it worse than I did for Shae,” Hunk noted.

“I’m also less in denial about it,” Shiro muttered, and Hunk pouted.

“Well, isn’t that grand?” Coran declared.

“Shiro, that’s lovely,” Allura said. “Of course we must help you keep your promise.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Keith said. “What kind of defenses do they have?”

Thank goodness for Keith. “I was only able to get second-hand information, mostly, but here’s what I learned…”

They were sidetracked with other adventures for a while, other missions just too important not to take, weathering attacks from Zarkon and recovering from them. So it was almost three months before they made it to Teler.

They dropped into orbit, Lions deployed against the fighters. Allura broadcast on a wide signal. “Attention, people of Teler. This is Princess Allura and Voltron. We have come to defend you against Zarkon.”

“We’ve also come to see a chick named Elslince, anyone know where she is?” Lance put in.

“Lance!” half the team yelled at him. Lance snickered.

“People of Teler, please let us know how best to help you.”

The Galra fighters were closing in, suicidally fast. These fighters hadn’t ever succeeded in permanently taking down a Lion before, and for all the robots’ programming, they couldn’t seem to figure out how to coordinate against Voltron. No, the real battle was going to take place on the ground. And he was nervous. He was finally here, after months of swallowing his impatience and doing what was necessary, he was finally back. Would she remember him? Of course she would. Was she still alive? What if she wasn’t? If she wasn’t, he’d liberate the planet in her memory. But he prayed that she was. And that she didn’t mind too much he was going to cause a lot of collateral damage with all the weapons at his disposal.

“Princess Allura… Voltron…” A quavery old voice came on the radio. “I am Elder Hamza. We have heard much about you. If you could assist the Resistance in retaking the city of Neemo, we would be most grateful. We can speak there afterwards about a further alliance.”

“Thank you, Elder Hamza,” Allura said. “Coran?”

“I’ve found the city of Neemo; pinpointing it on your radar,” Coran said, and a light pinged on Shiro’s map screen.

“Thanks. Hold position here; we’re going in. Lions, with me!”

Shiro took Pidge and Lance with him to meet with the leader of the local Resistance, leaving Keith and Hunk in the air to defend against the remaining Galra fighters. The leader was very helpful. “We’re facing heavy Galra fire from here, here, and here. We’re down to our last reserves of fuel and power cells. If we don’t take this city today, it’s going to be months before we can return and try again, and by then…” By then the Galra would be even more firmly entrenched.

“Got it,” Shiro said.

“And what about Doctor Elslince?” Pidge asked.

“It’s fine, we have enough to worry about-” Shiro began.

“Doctor Elslince… She’s been captured,” the Teleran said with a heavy face.

Shiro felt ice congeal in his gut. “Captured? You’re sure?” Then there was a chance he – they could rescue her.

“Yes, she’s working in the Galra headquarters, put to work healing their soldiers. Our scouts caught glimpses of her and our other prisoners over the last two weeks.”

Shiro studied the map, thinking. It would be important to capture the enemy headquarters among other things, but they needed to get the pressure off the Telerans at the bridge, at the marketplace…

“Hey, so I have an idea,” Lance said. “Do you guys have, like, fifty gallons of orange paint?”

“Lance…” Pidge began warningly.

“No, no, hear me out. So I’ve got my Lion’s ice powers, right? So here’s what we do…”

Lance’s plan was insane. And clever. Shiro wouldn’t have come up with something like that, and he wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing.

“Did you catch all of that, Keith, Hunk?”

“Roger,” Keith said.

“Already getting ready,” Hunk said.

“Then Shiro can go be the hero he’s always dreamed of being-” Lance clasped his hands, making smirky lovey eyes.

“Okay, all right,” Shiro said, annoyed. “Let’s just do it.”

The Teleran looked at all three of them. “O-okay. We’ll get in position.”

“Cool!” Lance said, made fingerguns, and fired them off as he jogged out of the command centre after Shiro and Pidge.

The plan kept the others in the air and in their Lions, and for that, Shiro was glad. He’d caught glimpses of what it looked like on the ground… and it was ugly. Not that he’d been any more experienced than they were, back when he was still serving Earth. The nations of Earth had stopped warring a few decades back, and their generation had actually grown up in a climate of peace and hope for maybe the first time in human history. So no, he knew no more about war from personal experience than the other Paladins under his command. He was just older, a little bit, had more training – besides his mostly-blank stint as a prisoner and a slave. If he could reasonably protect them from this reality for a little longer… that wasn’t a bad thing, was it?

He sent the Black Lion into a tight turn and a dive, landing heavily in front of Galra HQ. With Lance’s distraction, it should hopefully be under-defended about now. Because he was going to take on whatever was left single-handed. With his right hand. Heh. But they couldn’t risk destroying the building, not with prisoners inside. He’d get reinforcements after a while, when they’d defeated the Galra at the main battle.

He dropped out of the cockpit, landing in a crouch. “Elslince!” The rattle of Galra fire was his only answer, pinging off his energy shield.

He charged.

HQ was easily two dozen stories tall with three levels below-ground. It was a Teleran office building, it looked like, even from the inside, although the Galra had fortified the front entrance. Fortifying didn’t really matter when his right hand was basically a mini-lightsaber. Galra robots fell in pieces, he vaulted the barrier, one jump ahead of rifle fire, rolling behind their line and slicing.

Always thrumming in the back of his mind was an undercurrent of fear – not specifically for his mission, or his friends, or even for Elslince’s current status. No, it was wondering when the next moment would be that his unremembered past would rise up and swallow him, halt him in his tracks, freeze the breath in his lungs…

Up until this point, when he’d really needed it, his reflexes had saved him when his mind failed, honed, it seemed, from months in the Galra arena. He had to trust that.

Elevator or stairs? Probably stairs. It wasn’t like the Galra would label which floor they kept their prisoners or field hospital on – even if he could read more than a couple words of Galra without a translator.

But climbing all those stairs, fighting the whole way… He was a pilot, not a space marine.

They wouldn’t put the hospital far away from the front door. He kicked in the door to the second floor. “Elslince!” Galra robots spun away from the elevator, but he was already plowing through them, knocking them into each other. “Elslince!?”

Over the crashing of metal parts, he thought he heard an answering call. “Sh-Shiro?” Yep, he’d recognize that stammer anywhere. There was a door in the partition and he opened it cautiously, alert to new threats.

Nothing shot at him, nothing popped out at him – so far, so good. “Elslince, you in here?”

“Y-yes- Ah!” Her voice cut off in a shrill cry.

He threw caution to the wind and sprinted across the hall filled with Galra soldiers lying semi-conscious on rough cots. The floor was slick with purple blood and he tried to avoid the worst spots. It reminded him of old war movies… No time to think about that now! He burst through the next doorway and saw Elslince, in a blood-stained grey jumpsuit, in the grip of a Galra officer; he had a pistol pointed at Shiro, who stopped short.

“Good, good – surrender, Black Paladin, or your little friend gets it!”

“You leave her alone!” Shiro shouted.

“You have until the count of five to get on the floor with your hands behind your-”

“Will you both stop it!?” Elslince screamed, breaking free from the Galra officer. “Unless I treat this man _right now_ , he’s going to die, so both of you sit down and shut up, unless you want to help!”

He wanted to rush to her now that he was free from the officer’s hold, drag her away to safety, but she had a compelling argument, except… “Elslince, that’s a Galra soldier.”

“Shiro, sit! Shut! Major, pass me the tefradoxymalin and then hold him still.” She was tying a tourniquet around the soldier’s leg. Shiro did as she said, and the Galra major did as well, cowed by her flashing blue eyes.

“The Paladin, or the-”

“The patient, Major! Hurry!” She injected the groaning soldier with the syringe, then picked up a nasty-looking saw. Long strips of bandages were wound through her writhing hair, at the ready.

Shiro’s eyes widened. He’d never seen an amputation before – that he could remember. He braced himself. So did the Galra major, it seemed. Elslince was concentrating, every last bit of her attention on her current task, her hair barely twitching now under the pressure. How long did they have until reinforcements showed up, Galra or Teleran?

When the bloody work was done and the leg bandaged, Elslince looked back towards the other door behind her, as if expecting more, but the Major drew his gun again. In a flash, Shiro darted forward and chopped at the gun, and it fell to the floor in pieces. Undeterred, the Major swung at Shiro. Shiro dodged, kicked him into the wall, jumped forward, grabbed Elslince around the waist, and hauled her towards the door when her startled, stumbling feet couldn’t keep up.

“H-hey! Stop! Wait! There are more wounded back there!”

“I’m here to rescue you,” Shiro said. “We have to go before Galra reinforcements show up. Are there any other Telerans here-?”

“They need me, Shiro!”

“So do your people! Elslince, are the Galra more important than the Telerans to you?” Unfair question, he knew, but he needed her to get moving _now_. The Major was recovering, swinging around, snarling at them.

“ _Injured_ people are important to me!” she protested, still struggling against him. “And there are still some here! I swore an oath, Shiro!”

He didn’t want to just say ‘too bad’ and drag her out. But…

“You will both die here!” growled the Major.

Yeah, or that sort of thing was bound to happen. Shiro turned his back on the Major, shielding Elslince from his charge with his body, grunting with the impact that sent him stumbling and crashing through into the recovery room. His boots slipped on the bloodstained floor and they fell together, and he cradled her as they hit the floor.

Pounding boots shook the floor and Shiro braced himself before looking up. Would it be Galra reinforcements, or…?

It was a squad of Telerans. “Captain Shiro!” Field promotion, cool.

“Paladin Shiro,” he corrected them, standing, Elslince still held protectively in his arms. “Sorry, I didn’t get very far into the building.”

“You took down the main defenses, and that’s all we needed. And you found Elslince! Good to see you, kid!”

“Breeska, there’s wounded men back there-”

“Let us secure the area first, then you can do your thing, all right?” Some of the squad were emerging from the operating room with the Major in a position of surrender.

For the first time, Elslince relaxed. He could feel it in her shoulders, see it in her hair. She glanced up at him, her old shyness returning. “Before I do anything else… Th-thanks for coming to save me, Shiro. I… wasn’t expecting to see you again, and you… came for me, just like you said.”

He hadn’t actually managed to save her from anything. The Telerans had saved both of them. So much for Lance’s idea that he play hero. But he’d done what he could, right? “You’re welcome. I should rejoin my team.” He flicked his radio on.

“Nah, we got things covered here,” Lance said, catching that last bit.

“Is that so?” Shiro asked his radio.

“It does appear that way,” Allura said. “There do not appear to be any more Galra reinforcements moving in from other cities. I think the day is ours.”

“That’s good to hear.” Shiro turned to the Teleran squad. “In that case, I’ll help you clear the rest of the building.”

“Thanks, Paladin. Appreciate it.”

“Want to ride with me?” Shiro asked Elslince at the close of the day, once he’d received confirmation that the last Galra opposition in the city was being mopped up.

He wasn’t expecting an affirmative answer, but tired blue eyes perked up, green hair twitched in curiosity, and she said “I’d like that. I never got to see the inside, last time.”

He decided not to bring up the fact that the Black Lion was basically a weapon of mass destruction… and he still didn’t even know how to use its full capabilities. She probably hadn’t forgotten, was just trying to meet him halfway. “Sure. Where to?”

“Where are you going to go?”

“Once I drop you off, I’m heading back to the Castle of Lions with the rest of the team. I think we’re going to land the Castle just outside the city, though, so we’re not going to far.” He hesitated. “Uh… you want to meet the team? They’ve all been teasing me about you and you know about them, you may as well meet each other. If you want to head back to the Resistance afterwards, I can take you.”

She hesitated too, then straightened her shoulders. “I was hoping you’d ask me over. That’s what I really wanted, I just… wasn’t sure… how to say it.”

He grinned, oddly relieved. “I’ll try and be more direct in the future.”

She stood just behind his seat in the Black Lion, distractingly close. Her clothes smelled of Galra blood. He wondered what had happened to her pink outfit and if it was possible to get another one for her. Grey just made her seem subdued, not at all like the cheerful girl he’d gotten to know.

He was just happy she was safe. And despite his stoic facade, he was excited to introduce her to his friends. He just hoped Lance kept his mouth relatively shut. The rest would probably be all right.

The Black Lion touched down in its landing bay and he stood, removing his helmet. “Shall we?”

She grinned on seeing his hair – she really liked it, didn’t she? – and nodded without speaking. She took up a position slightly behind him, and after a moment, he realized that tendrils of green hair were wrapping around his left arm. She was nervous?

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “They’re all really nice. Just don’t let Lance bother you.”

“I remember,” she said, with a nervous giggle. “He was the one who started flirting with the Princess about a second after he met her.”

“Heh, that’s right. Here’s the elevator.”

“This place is so strange,” she murmured, looking around. “I guess a spaceship doesn’t need plants, but it’s so… bare.”

He hadn’t really thought about it. “I guess so.” The elevator doors opened to the command room. “C’mon.”

“Ah, Shiro, here you are!” Coran cried. “And this must be Miss Elslince. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Yes, a pleasure indeed,” Allura said, stepping forward with an outstretched hand. “We’ve heard much about you…”

“Though Shiro’s a pretty tough nut to crack,” Hunk said.

“Shiro’s a… nut?” Elslince asked, glancing up at him. “I thought he was a human…”

“Figure of speech,” Pidge explained. “Hi, I’m Pidge. Nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Pidge,” Elslince said. “And you must be Keith, and you must be-”

“Hunk,” said Hunk, a friendly smile on.

She smiled back. “I-it’s really nice to meet all of you finally. Even Lance.”

Lance pouted ferociously while the others laughed. “What!? What were you telling her about me, Shiro?”

“Oh, nothing,” Shiro said.

“I don’t believe you for a second.” Lance paused, then swooped in on Elslince, charm on at full blast. “But hey, babe, how’s it going?”

She shrank back under Shiro’s arm. “I’m well, I suppose. No one was hurt in that fight?”

“No,” Keith said.

“Ah, we don’t need you to trouble yourself,” Coran said. “We have a full Altean infirmary with the latest in cryogenic healing technology! No doctors required. Rather an obsolete concept, aren’t they?”

Even Shiro thought his attitude was a bit patronizing, but Elslince tensed and stepped out from behind him. “Well, I’m so happy for you with your amazing super-technology that we _definitely_ have access to on Teler while fighting Zarkon. That’s wonderful. Some of us have to study for years to learn what your computers or whatever can do in seconds, but hey, obsolescence is a pretty broad term, isn’t it?”

Coran took a step back, looking chagrined.

“Yeah, that was kinda harsh, Coran,” Lance said loudly.

Coran bowed his head to her. “I apologize, Miss Elslince. I spoke without thinking.”

Elslince slumped a little. “I’m sorry too. I’ve… just had a very long day, and… it’s been very exciting, getting rescued and coming here to meet all of you, and…” Tears were welling up in her big blue eyes. “I’d be really grateful if I could rest for a bit.”

“Absolutely,” Allura said kindly, moving forward to put an arm around Elslince’s shoulders. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through in the last little while. Come, I’ll find you a room. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

“Th-thank you,” Elslince mumbled, wiping her eyes with her hair and following Allura.

Pidge glared at Coran. “You knew she was a doctor! Why would you say that!”

“Hey, I said I was sorry!” Coran protested.

“Okay, just settle down, everyone,” Shiro said firmly. “We’ve all been on edge today. Everything will look better tomorrow. We should rest too so we’re ready to go. No doubt the Telerans will have new missions for us.” He didn’t doubt Coran had just stuck his foot in his mouth and truly regretted it. Elslince would probably forgive him, she was pretty mature. He hoped they’d be able to get along.

“I mean, at least we rescued this city, and your girlfriend,” Hunk said optimistically. “That’s something.”

Shiro didn’t blush. For once. “She’s not my girlfriend, just a plant I met whom I happen to respect very much.”

“Oh, come on!” Hunk cried, and Lance snickered.

“Maybe she’s into younger men, then-” he began, waggling his eyebrows.

“ _No._ ” Shiro glared at him sternly, restraining an exasperated sigh. _Just leave the poor girl alone until she’s found her footing again_.

“Well, I’m going to bed,” Keith said. “Good night.”

“Good night,” the others called.

Months of work, of fighting, of knocking out Galra installations so the Resistance could come in and capture key points, and going Voltron on reinforcing Galra fleets later, Teler was finally more or less an independent planet again.  
Elder Hamza met with Allura in the entrance to the Castle of Lions, with a crowd of representative Telerans all wearing flower crowns and carrying green branches. They gave flower crowns to Team Voltron, too. Keith looked uncomfortable in his. “We can never thank you enough for your help,” the elder said.

“No thanks are necessary,” Allura said graciously. “Although if you wish to thank anybody, it should be Shiro. He was the one who led us here to your aid.”

“Thank you, Shiro, for everything you have done for us,” Elder Hamza said, taking his hand with both of his, and some hair, and shaking it enthusiastically with as much strength as the wizened old Teleran could manage. “It will take us some time to consolidate our victory and begin restoring our world, but should you ever be in need, please let us know and we will do everything we can.”

“Thanks,” Shiro managed to say, a little awkwardly. It was what he had wished for, the reason why he’d wanted to come to Teler in the first place, to begin building their base of support, but he still wasn’t sure how to publicly receive such support. “And we know where to go next from here, who to help next.”

“I did have a request from one of my people, if you’d be so kind as to indulge us in one more thing,” the elder said, and looked back towards the crowd of Telerans. There was a shuffle, and Elslince stepped out of the crowd, her cheeks blushing yellow. “My great-granddaughter wants to go with you, to see the universe, help you as she can against Zarkon. And it seems she’s very fond of all of you, especially you, young man,” he said to Shiro, and Shiro could feel a pink blush of his own spreading across his face.

“How lovely!” Allura gushed. “Of course, she’s welcome to come along. We’d be happy to have her and her skills with us! Thank you, Elslince!”

“Thank _you_ for having me,” Elslince said shyly. She kissed Elder Hamza on the cheek and trotted to stand over by Pidge. “I’ll contact you when I can!”

“Be safe,” Elder Hamza said. “Go save the universe.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to actually come,” Shiro said to her alone later, in the break room. “I was bothered by the idea of saying goodbye to you, though. I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

“I want to repay you as best I can,” she said, hair threading through her fingers in intricate patterns. She was… feeling shy, still? Was that what that meant? “For coming to help me and my planet.”

“I made a promise,” he said. “I can’t always keep them. But I wanted to keep this one.”

“Well, I’m grateful,” she said, and brushed his left sleeve with her hair in a shyly affectionate gesture, and he smiled fondly at her.


	3. Flowers for Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by [Morten Lauridsen choral music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5ken3RJBo) (also recommend Lux Aeterna and Les Chansons des Roses because they're equally gorgeous!).

Part 3: Flowers For Her

Elslince didn’t quite fit in instantaneously to Team Voltron, as might be expected. Shy, unused to space travel, she spent a lot of time wandering the stark corridors softly at first. Shiro was busy with his own problems and the problems of the team and the galaxy, but he tried to talk to her a few times a day.

He found out that his comparison of her to a plant wasn’t as far off as he’d first thought – she photosynthesized, and only ate once a day. He learned that Teleran blood was indeed yellow, and that was why she blushed the way she did. He learned that she liked collecting Thundercats trading cards (and consequently that humans had not invented Thundercats, they’d only turned it into a TV show), and she’d brought her collection in her meagre possessions. She had about thirty, gathered over a decade; it seemed they were hard to come by when fighting a war without consistent access to intergalactic markets.

But he couldn’t spend all day with her, and for a while, he worried that it hadn’t been a good idea to bring her after all. Thanks to the cryogenic healing chambers, her skills weren’t exactly in demand, especially when they were just traveling through space and not engaging in combat. Although… if they were ever on the ground again, separated from the Castle, she could be a lifesaver. They’d have to see. In the meantime, there was little for her to do. She volunteered to help Coran keep the castle clean, but that wasn’t exactly why she’d come.

But after a couple days, she found her way to the Green Lion’s hangar and spent time with Pidge. Pidge didn’t mind the company, chattering about her discoveries and inventions to Elslince’s willing ears, and Elslince found a data terminal and began studying as much of the galaxy outside Teler as she could, or looking through display screens at the beauty of space outside, the nebulae and vast expanses of stars.

She also began making friends with Hunk, sweet, gentle Hunk, whose own awkwardness put her at ease. And sometimes she go to the observation room of the training arena and watch Keith and/or Lance fight… and bicker, and be dorks.

She seemed shy of Allura. “She’s a princess,” she explained when Shiro asked – Allura had been wondering.

“And you’re the great-granddaughter of the Elder of Teler,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to be shy about when it comes to rank. And we’re all in this together, there aren’t enough of us on this ship to make a distinction like that.”

“I… I guess. She’s just so… elegant, and regal. I’m in awe of her.”

Shiro chuckled. “Well, give her a chance, will you? She’d love to get to know you, too.”

“O-okay. If you say so.”

“You’ve seen how the others sass her, right? She’s not so scary. Except when she’s mad. And she won’t be mad at you.”

“Hmm. I might actually have a question for her. I’ll ask her sometime. Soon.”

“Good. I do have another question for _you_. I know we haven’t really had time to make you feel really settled, but tell me now, and I’ll try and arrange it – is there anything else we can do to make you feel more at home?”

She hesitated. “I know it’s a bother…”

“Elslince. I know you’re making friends with the team, but you still don’t look comfortable to be here.” Or really happy, even. Well, perhaps none of them were really _happy_ to be here, except maybe Allura and Coran, but the humans had adjusted faster.

“C’mon, you can tell me.” And he wanted to make up for the fact that he’d dragged her away from her home.

“Well… it’s just… this spaceship is beautiful, but it’s so cold. All this metal and ceramic… I saw pictures of when it was on Planet Eris, it was beautiful there.”

“You want a garden,” he guessed.

She started and blinked, then smiled, abashed. “Yes.”

“I’ll see what we can do.”

The first contribution he made was on the next planet they visited. He knew nothing about planets, just grabbed a ceramic pot from storage, dug up the first flowering shrub he saw, and plopped it in. It looked decent when he was done, so he figured it would survive long enough to get to the plant expert. It was quite pretty, too, pink trumpet-shaped flowers and velveteen leaves.

The others had seen him. “Hey, that’s a good idea!” Hunk said. “We should have been growing our own herbs all along. You have any more of those pots?”

“Not with me, sorry. Just got the one.”

Pidge peered at it. “I hope no one’s allergic to it.”

Lance and Keith weren’t paying any attention, arguing over strategy instead. As long as they didn’t start throwing punches, everything was fine. “Guess we’ll find out.”

Pidge smiled reassuringly at him. “I think she’ll like it.”

“The gesture, at least,” Hunk said, less reassuringly.

“And if you want us to help out, just say so,” Pidge continued. “In fact… Hunk, conference when we get back to the ship. I have some ideas and I will need your help.”

“Righty-o,” Hunk said.

Allura and Coran couldn’t miss the fact that he attended the mission debriefing with a potted plant under his arm, but neither of them said anything about it, only smiled knowingly at him, and as soon as they were done, he went off to find Elslince.

“Hey,” he said when he found her, in the Green Lion hangar. Pidge was not there, but hadn’t she said something about meeting with Hunk?

She looked up from her laptop. “Hi! Oh, what is that?”

“I dunno,” he said, and presented it to her bluntly. “It has flowers on it, so… it’s a start?”

She stared at it, then at him, and her face melted into the biggest smile he’d ever seen, with a little giggle. “You are the nicest person. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I think Pidge and Hunk are interested in contributing too, and if we can get Lance and Keith to think of it as a competition, you’ll have a garden in no time.”

“Hahaha, that would be hilarious. They don’t mind?” She was peering into the flowers, feeling the leaves diagnostically. Her hair was curling around the stems.

“No, of course not. Gives them something to do that’s not connected with missions. Sure, Hunk cooks and tinkers, and Pidge codes things, and Keith works out, and Lance… gets into trouble, but it’s good to have something else to do too. In fact, this could be a really good team-building exercise.” His mind had begun to race. “This one was kind of spontaneous, but if you tell us what to look for, we could do a really good job, I bet.”

She smiled, and he felt light-headed. “That would be lovely. All of this for me… I haven’t done anything to deserve this…”

“Not the point,” he said. “We- I don’t need a reason to do this for you, do I? Don’t worry. You’ll find your niche in the team soon enough. Remember, we haven’t had any serious planet-side missions for a while.”

She sobered, and now he felt bad for reminding her. “True. I’ll do my best when we come to it.”

“I know. Now, where do you want this?” It wasn’t that heavy, but he could carry it to her room for her.

“My room… Hmm, or do you think Pidge would mind if I left it here? I spend a lot of time here, after all.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ask her.”

But as they approached Elslince’s room, they heard the sound of loud banging, and the whine of electric saws. Elslince’s bag was in the hall with all her things in it. “What on Earth-”

Pidge’s head popped out of the room, her hair covered in shiny metal shavings, a breath mask over her face and goggles over her glasses. “You can’t come in yet!”

“What the _he_ -” He remembered just in time Pidge wasn’t old enough for that kind of language and leaned into the room.

Hunk was kneeling by what was left of the wall, a circular saw in his hand, also wearing a breath mask and goggles. He offered a sheepish smile at Shiro’s confused frown. Metal shavings littered the entire floor, particles were floating in the air – but that was nothing compared to the fact that the _wall_ was missing into the next room. The next room, which wasn’t a bedroom, but a small living-room type area, if he recalled correctly. “What are you two doing? Did you get permission from Coran and Allura to hack up the Castle of Lions? Where did you get those tools?”

“We’re enlarging Elslince’s room, yes, of course we did, and they know what we’re doing – mostly – and they gave them to us.” Pidge counted off her answers on her fingers.

Shiro shook his head, trying to dispel the disoriented feeling. It didn’t work. And just when he’d thought Hunk and Pidge were the steady ones… “Enlarging-”

“This is just step one!” Pidge explained, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door behind her to keep the noise and the metal bits contained. She brandished a paper plan at the two of them, drawn in brightly coloured crayons. “First, we make her room bigger. Second, we install proper planter beds. Third, an irrigation system. Fourth, proper sunlamps. Also maybe a curtain for the bed alcove, since the room is bigger now. Then you can have the best garden that’s ever been on a spaceship, ever!”

Shiro could feel his mouth hanging open and closed it. “That’s… ambitious.”

“I know!” Pidge said proudly. “But it can work. Allura told me that we can do whatever want to these rooms as long as we don’t build up or down, or cut any of the power lines, and I checked, there aren’t any in this wall that we cut down, so stop making that face.”

“O-okay.” Now that she was explaining it, it seemed… _slightly_ less crazy. “Did you think to get Lance and Keith to help?”

“I didn’t think they’d be interested…”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to need some way to build these ‘proper planter beds’ of yours, and setting up this irrigation system without flooding anything, and you don’t think they’d love to get their hands on welding torches? Maybe we should leave wiring the sunlamps to Hunk, though.”

“All right!” Pidge saluted enthusiastically, then glanced behind him. “Elslince, are you okay?”

Elslince was blue-screen-of-deathing behind him, staring vacantly at Pidge. “This is… kind of overwhelming.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Pidge said. “And I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking about how long it would take when we started. I guess we should have asked you first, if it was okay to take your room apart. We… got kind of carried away. Now you have to sleep somewhere else until it’s done…”

“Don’t worry about that,” Elslince said, recovering some animation. “It’s very kind of you. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you in return.”

Pidge grinned. “Give us more awesome projects! This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks!”

“O-okay.”

Shiro nodded at her bag. “Shall we get you settled in another room for the time being? It’s going to take them at least a few days to get that mess straightened out.”

She picked up the bag. “Right. Lead the way!”

It took Team Voltron the better part of a week to get her room garden straightened out, but Shiro had to admit they’d done a good job by the time they’d finished. Even Lance had done well, welding the planters together. They had to be watertight, so that mold wouldn’t start growing in the cracks. If that happened they’d have to rip it all up and start over again.

That first plant had lived long enough to make it into the garden, and it had been joined by a few others. Hunk contributed the most, although his gifts were self-motivated – he wanted fresh herbs. Elslince didn’t mind, in fact, she was happy to take care of them. But even Keith picked up some interesting little cactus-y things. Lance brought her the closest thing he could find to a red rosebush, giving it to her with flourish and fanfare, but Shiro wasn’t sure she got the significance of red roses.

She spent less time with the others now, spending a lot of time in her larger room with her slowly expanding collection, but now the others came to seek her out, to see how it was going, to help her water or prune. She remembered exactly who had given her which plant, and it didn’t take her long to start naming them.

Shiro liked to drop by, especially. It was a peaceful place, the antithesis of much of his life since he’d left Earth. And there was always good company there.

“You’re like their dad,” she giggled one time, when he was complaining about the antics of the team.

“What? I’m not that old…”

“I know, you’re the same age as me, aren’t you? But you support them, keep them in line, direct them… you’re totally their dad.”

Shiro put his head back, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his forehead. “If you say so. I don’t feel like a dad, but I guess I can see what you’re getting at.”

She giggled again. She really liked this idea, didn’t she? “Heehee, Voltron Dad. And Allura’s kind of like Voltron Mom.”

“Now that, I can see,” Shiro said, and chuckled. “What does that make Coran, then? Voltron Uncle?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Definitely. And I’m Voltron Aunt. We’re all just one big family in space.”

“That should make Lance happy,” he said.

“I know, he misses his family. He was telling me about his mom’s pies last time he was in here… They’re so young, aren’t they?”

“Hunk, maybe not so much… Pidge, definitely. She’s brilliant, especially for her age, but… sometimes I wonder if she should be out here at all. But she’s stubborn, and driven, and she won’t take no for an answer. Every chance she gets, she’s looking at Galra prisoner manifests, trying to find her family. I hope we can help her find them soon.”

“Mm.” Elslince was quiet a moment, and looked more somber than she had a minute ago. “Do you think they realize what’s going on, really?”

“I don’t know if _I_ realize what’s _really_ going on,” he said honestly. “This whole thing is so big, too big for us. Not so long ago, we humans thought we might be alone in the universe. Now, there’s an empire conquering the entire galaxy, and more species than we can begin to count fighting for their freedom? But no… I don’t think the others know what fighting a war really means. You hear their mission chatter, right? All the cheeky one-liners, the energetic exuberance…”

“Do you think they should know?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“But if they’re not taking it seriously…”

“Well, I have been thinking about it. They don’t realize the impact their actions have, true… the consequences, not for themselves, but for the rest of the galaxy… Sometimes I really think Lance just thinks he’s playing a videogame. Keith… Keith might guess at it.” Or maybe that was just Keith being quiet and serious about everything.

“Shouldn’t they know the consequences?” Blue eyes turned on him anxiously. “They don’t even notice when they blow up those big ships. It’s just one target fewer to them. There are _people_ on those ships, Shiro. And yes, those people are trying to blow us up, and maybe some or most of them want to do it whole-heartedly, but… it just doesn’t seem right to me! People die, and Voltron laughs at a job well done, because it’s a child that doesn’t understand!”

“Elslince…” It wasn’t completely true, often it was more the exhilaration of surviving danger. But he could see her point.

“And what if there are prisoners on those ships? When you found the Red Lion, you freed prisoners at the same time. If Pidge hadn’t decided to take a different path, they would have all died when Voltron attacked the ship.”

He looked away, uncomfortable. “I know. But in one of those big space battles, it’s just not possible to cleanly disable every ship.” But she wasn’t wrong; the thought that they might lose Doctor and Matt Holt in the struggle for survival nagged at him. “But that I might be able to point out to the team without killing their innocence.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“Yeah. You’re right, they’re so young… they shouldn’t be exposed to this stuff. And yeah, I was in the military, they were in military training, but Earth has been at peace for decades. Galaxy Garrison is mostly about exploration now, not fighting. So… they didn’t know… don’t know… what they were getting into. No one’s talked to them about death, about the hard choices people make in war. We joke about ‘still being alive’, but I don’t think they’ve thought about what that really means, or that they want to.”

He glanced at her. “They haven’t seen what you’ve seen. Haven’t been through what you have. Haven’t had to endure that level of hardship.”

She looked sad. “Is that one reason you’ve been so nice to me?”

“…Yeah.”

“And that’s why you don’t want them to think too hard about the horrible things of the universe.”

“If they do, they’ll either become hardened soldiers, or they’ll become beaten down by the horror of it all, and I can’t tell which outcome would be worse. So I think it’s okay, in comparison, that they don’t necessarily treat things as seriously as they ought to. As long as they’re still alive and we work well as a team, that’s enough for me.”

“Allura and Coran, they’ve also seen terrible things, haven’t they?” Elslince said. “And they seem to be going along with your decision about not telling the others.”

“We haven’t talked about it, but yeah, they haven’t brought it up.”

“And Allura’s lost her father, twice,” she said softly, almost to herself. “It’s so sad. I cried for her after she told me.”

He got up and knelt beside her chair. “You lost your sister.”

“But I didn’t lose my planet. I didn’t lose everyone I ever knew, except one person. And even to come here… I came because I wanted to, because I wanted to see the galaxy, because I wanted to try to help the person who saved me. Not because I went through a wormhole.” She reached out, and took his artificial right hand in both of hers. He stared at her. “You’ve lost so much, too. I cry for you, too, sometimes.”

“Elslince…” She was going to make _him_ choke up in a second. “The Earth I left behind was a planet of peace. Sure, it took us almost all of human history to get there, we’re a pretty violent species, but we got there. So we have to have hope for the galaxy, too. Even though it’s been at war at least ten thousand years.” Which was most of recorded human history to begin with.

“I know,” she whispered.

“And deep down, I don’t think we’ll win by sheer force. Most of the conflicts in human history, especially the ones about conquest, ended up… losing a lot of lives for not very much. I don’t want to say pointless, but we could have done better. So this war might end up being the same. We can break Zarkon’s military, but until we change his mind, and the minds of his followers, we won’t truly succeed.”

“Do you think it’s possible? That the same peace that Earth and Teler had before Zarkon will spread throughout the galaxy?”

“I don’t know,” he said, squeezing her hand gently. “Not quickly, anyway. But until then, even if it’s pointless… I’m willing to give up everything to protect the people I care about.” Grey eyes met blue eyes. “I don’t want you to lose any more. I don’t want you to cry anymore, for anyone’s sake. Not even mine.”

“Then you can’t give up your life,” she whispered. “You can’t give up _everything_. Because I care about you, too.”

Did Telerans kiss? Because he really wanted to kiss her right now.

She hesitated. “Is kissing a thing humans do?”

He coughed a relieved laugh. “Yes. Yes, it is. Can I kiss you?”

She tilted her face towards him, yellow blooming on her cheeks, blue eyes sparkling and tender. Her hair reached out towards him, touching his face gently, and then his lips brushed against hers.


	4. Solace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the last chapter that I wrote before S2 came out; I later edited it after seeing S6 and 7.

Part 4: Solace

He woke gradually, prodded awake by small fingers, hair brushing his eyelids. “Mmph. What?”

“I think you were having a bad dream again,” Elslince said from beside him, as he rolled over to face her. “You were breathing fast and trying to speak and pulling on my hair.”

He raised his hand into the air where he could see it and several thick broken strands were wound around his fingers. “Sorry.”

“Do you remember it?”

“No… not really.” He took a deep breath, gathering his sleep-muddled thoughts, pulling Elslince closer to him, tucking her head under his chin. “Just fragments, that’s all I ever get. Sendak… Haggar… my own face, but with yellow eyes and a hate-filled grin… Everything’s dark, and I’m all alone, I can’t find anyone I know… I look down and my arm is gone, and everything hurts, my arm hurts, my face hurts… Even when the pain is gone, I just feel so hopeless, and helpless, and afraid.” He managed a lopsided grin. “That’s why I didn’t sleep a lot before, why I spent all my nights working out.”

“And you’re all the more beautiful for it, with your strong body, but it isn’t good for you to skip sleep.” Slim hands slid up towards his broad shoulders.

“I was never a small skinny guy, but I never looked like this until I started at the Galra Prison Gym,” he tried to joke. “Gotta get fit to get fed.” It wasn’t a very good joke. He’d been lucky in the arena. He’d already been young and strong and agile, and trained in combat – even if he hadn’t had to use that part of his training as a scientific exploration pilot. Most of the others, that he could remember, hadn’t had those advantages.

And yeah, he’d had to get stronger – if he didn’t win, he didn’t eat – but if he didn’t win, he’d have been dead, so there was that, too.

Elslince hadn’t been distracted. “It doesn’t help, to know that I’m here with you? You still feel alone?”

“I… yeah. I know you’re here, El. It just never translates into my dreams.” He’d moved into her room a short while back. Not for shenanigans – they were still in pyjamas, it wasn’t time for that sort of thing, not in their relationship, not in their lives. Not with all they’d lived through and all they had to continue to endure, not yet. Maybe someday. No, he shared her room just to be together. And she talked him into sleeping at normal hours instead of restlessly avoiding his sleep half the nights, and he agreed, because he’d hoped she would be able to help with the nightmares.

So far that hadn’t been true… but he still didn’t want to leave. Her companionship was soothing, and she was so patient with him. And being in her room… he could smell the earth, the plants, and it reminded him that although he wasn’t due to see Earth, see home again anytime soon, he wasn’t any longer a prisoner of a hateful empire, cold and bloody and metallic. And that there was more to life than the Castle of Lions, than even the Black Lion he was bonded to – also cold and metallic. He was free… even if he would never be free of the scars, physical, mental, emotional…

He sighed, still tired, and wriggled until he could pillow his head on her chest. Now he could smell her, in addition to the plants, and she smelled fresh and strange, like citrus, oddly enough. Her fingers stroked his short hair, and her hair swept over him, binding him to her.

She was alive, she was life, and he was death in comparison; she was green and he was black and white; she breathed in his arms, and her alien heart beat in her ribcage under his ear the same as his own did. She hoped, she believed, she inspired him to do the same when he was on the verge of breaking under the game face he presented to the team. Her presence dispelled the unquiet cloud that always gathered over him when he woke from a half-remembered dream, and his demons could sleep for a while – and maybe let him do the same. She’d even accepted his arm, the one she’d feared before, the one he still feared even though it was part of him and hadn’t done anything _too_ strange yet.

She wasn’t his cure, but she was his lifeline.

He was still a little afraid for her. She’d followed him into the depths of space because she liked him; if she got hurt out here, if the Galra took her from him, it would all be his fault. If his arm revealed its secrets in a way that got her hurt or killed… Or even if he himself got killed, leaving her alone here… taking away _another_ person she cared about…

“I’m here for you,” she said, and it took him a minute to remember they’d been talking about his nightmare. “No matter how long you need to heal, no matter what wounds you’ll take and hardships you’ll endure on this quest, I’ll be here for you. Because you’re a strong, beautiful person, inside and out, and I love you for it. For your patience and kindness, your respect and determination and your scars, I love all of you, Takashi Shirogane. Even if you go somewhere I can’t follow, my heart will go with you.”

“I…” his voice caught, his heart skipped… “I love you, Elslince. You…” He’d been so eloquent in his head a minute ago, but his mouth failed him in actually expressing it out loud.

It wasn’t like she was his first love, even. There had been Adam, and Shiro had loved him deeply, and been loved in return. But things… hadn’t worked out. It wasn’t Adam’s fault, it had been all his. And Elslince had entranced him, he’d fallen for her gradually but completely, couldn’t help loving her just as much as ever he’d loved him, and maybe he could do things right this time. But he certainly couldn’t say that out loud. He just… sucked at communicating intimately, and he knew it.

Well, if he couldn’t express it with words, there were other ways he could tell her, and he turned his head to place a heartfelt kiss on her collarbone. He felt her lips answering on his forehead and he moved, pulling himself up so he was leaning over her, kissing her deeply on the mouth. Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him close, feeding his desperate desire to adore her. Or was it feeding her desperate desire to adore him? In any case, this kiss told him he would – _probably, maybe_ – be okay with never seeing Earth again if he could see the galaxy with Elslince beside him.

He released her, and they were both gasping for air. She was smiling, her eyes shining in the illumination from the dim teal-blue nightlight on the other side of the room. Such alien eyes, star-shaped pupils wide in the darkness, yet so full of such a familiar love.

“Do you feel better?” she asked softly.

“Yeah.”

She pushed him off and rolled him over, spooning him against his broad back. “Then you should try and sleep again. I’ll be right here.”

“Right.” He caught her hand and kissed it. “Right here. Got it.”

“Good night, Shiro.”

“Night, El.”

Their plan was set. The Castle was ready. The super-teladuv was ready. The Blade of Marmora was ready, hopefully – their alliance with Team Voltron still seemed shaky to her.

But Shiro was the first one to leave, off with the Black Lion to be bait for Zarkon. So of course she followed him down to the Black Lion hangar. He was expecting her, it seemed, and set his helmet down for a minute so he could pull her into the shadow of one of the Lion’s legs and kiss her soundly. With her pre-battle nerves zinging through her, she responded feverishly, her fingers trembling against his armoured back. She appreciated how strong and solid he seemed, her rock to lean on even as he prepared to go and do the actual difficult part of the mission.

He pulled back and looked down at her fondly. “Nervous?”

“A bit,” she admitted, looking away shyly.

“Me too. It’ll be better once I get into the cockpit.”

“I shouldn’t be,” she babbled, “it’s not the first time I’ve gone into combat… but I suppose it’s the first time I’ve gone into combat on a spaceship while the one I love is out fighting away from me.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “Fly well.” She didn’t have to tell him to be careful, or to fight hard. He would do that on his own, and the Black Lion would keep him safe. Perhaps safer than she was. Even so, she couldn’t help but worry – anything could happen.

“I will. Stay safe. …Just a sec, if you don’t mind…” He picked her up, pinning her against the wall of the Black Lion’s paw so that he didn’t have to bend down to kiss her, and kissed her hard through her startled but enthusiastic squeak. Her legs locked around his waist to keep her from falling, and the way he was leaning into her – she felt her blush spreading down her neck and shoulders. His tongue was sliding into her mouth and she was conscious of nothing but _him_ , his body, his scent, his sounds, his strength. She had to concentrate to keep her hair in check, that it didn’t tangle in his hair or something else awkward.

She was gasping for air by the time he next released her, eyes sparkling, cheeks burning, and he looked a little flushed and dazed himself. “Shiro – we – must focus.” Patience yielded focus, wasn’t it? They had to be patient. They could kiss until trees walked when Zarkon was defeated.

“But your nerves are gone, right?” That smile was infinitely sweet and loving, even through the mischievousness that prompted it. How could this man exist?

“Y-yes,” she stammered, as he let her down. Her knees were unsteady solely because of him, now, not because of her fear for him. One more quick smooch, and they let go of each other. She backed away as he scooped up his helmet and set it on his head. “I’ll be waiting.”

“I’m counting on it.” A wink, and he turned to vanish into the Black Lion.


	5. Bereavement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soundtrack for the final scene is [One Way Ticket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4RxZyCg6K4).

Chapter 5: Bereavement

She’d been tossed about, knocked unconscious briefly, and forced to sit near-useless on the sidelines, only able to help in monitoring power levels – when they existed – and following directions to restoring them when they didn’t. She’d done what she could, remaining calm, though her heart beat wildly for the fate of Voltron, out there, fighting Zarkon, and for Shiro, Zarkon’s personal target.

And when Zarkon was defeated and the Lions returned, she sank to her knees in relief, staring through the bridge viewscreens as the Castle activated a wormhole to escape the remnants of the recovering Galra defences.

But not for long – the Black Lion had been towed back to the ship by Pidge and Keith, its exterior lights out, its Paladin unresponsive. When the screens showed they were safely in another star cluster, she scrambled to her feet and dashed headlong for the Black Lion’s hangar. Allura and Coran followed her, and she met the other Paladins on the way.

The Lion was slumped on its side as if it were injured, but the door to the interior slid open for them. “Shiro?” Keith called cautiously.

She had no need for caution, and hurried up to the cockpit. The Lion wouldn’t hurt her, and she could help Shiro-

The pilot’s seat was empty. The bayard he’d somehow recovered was still left in its socket on the right of the cockpit, but there was no trace of Shiro at all. She gave a tiny gasp and fell to her knees blankly.

The others crowded around her. “He’s gone?” Keith said softly, disbelieving.

“He- he can’t be gone!” Pidge cried shrilly. “People don’t just… disappear!”

“We’ve seen stranger things out here,” Lance said slowly. “And that last attack, that destroyed Zarkon and busted us up at the same time… Maybe it…”

“But where did he go?” Hunk demanded. “Where could he go? What took him?”

“All excellent questions,” Allura said uncertainly. “Unless the Lion itself tells us, I don’t think we’ll be able to find out quickly. He could be anywhere in the universe now.” She bent down to Elslince. “I’m sorry. We’ll begin looking for him right away.”

Elslince didn’t respond. How could she respond? What was there to say? Her hero, her love, her light had been taken from her, her universe had been shattered.

The others left quietly as she sat and stared.

Pidge didn’t see much of her Teleran friend for a while. For an entire day after Shiro’s disappearance, she remained in her room. Pidge wondered if she’d had anything to eat, but the door was locked when she tried to check on her. She could have hacked it, either electronically or the old-fashioned way, but this was a time for delicacy, she figured. She’d come out before she starved.

The next day, or night, rather, Pidge was working deep in the bowels of the Castle, trying to put some fried relays back together. Not that there was really a day or night in space, they’d established this months ago, but they needed a schedule, and wasn’t it convenient that Altean time, though using vastly different measurements, happened to use something close to 28 hours to measure a day? 28 wasn’t too far off 24, was it? And there was so much damage she’d just gotten caught up in fixing everything, it was way past her bedtime but she hadn’t noticed. Anyway, she’d almost gotten the third relay hooked up when she got a spooked feeling and flinched, looking over both shoulders in fright. But there was nothing there. Well… maybe there was the distant sound of slow footsteps. Pidge shivered and began working faster.

She felt it again a couple hours later, when she was yawning at a control panel on the other side of the Castle, trying to see if there were fluctuations in the conduit or if it was just a malfunctioning indicator light. She jumped and looked about, but again there was nothing to see. But those slow, creepy footsteps were back, closer than before.

Pidge giggled nervously to herself, trying to break the tension. “It’s okay, it’s okay, the Castle’s not haunted this time, we didn’t plug it into anything stupid…” Although there was always the possibility something had gone wrong in the attack, that they’d gotten a magic virus or something from the Galra witch. Like Lance had said, they’d seen stranger things.

The footsteps paused when she giggled, then retreated as slowly as they’d come. Pidge made a horrible creeped out face to herself. She wasn’t half-asleep anymore, that was for sure.

The next night, she got Hunk to come with her. Not that he was any braver than her, but together they were stronger than alone, right? Lance and Keith wouldn’t be interested anyway, the meatheads. At least with Hunk she could pretend it was just about fixing the ship.

Hunk seemed a little nervous himself. “Hey, last night, did you, like…”

“Like, what?” Pidge asked, a little defiantly.

“Eh, never mind… Let’s get this cover popped.”

They were up to their elbows in cables and arcane tech when Hunk jumped. “Th-there! Did you hear that!?” He was nearly squeaking, but in a whisper.

Pidge froze and listened. “Yeah! I heard it last night, too!” She was also whispering, not wanting to draw attention to them. The footsteps were pretty distant, though.

Still, there were two of them, and only one set of footsteps. “Let’s go check it out!”

“What, are you crazy?”

“Someone has to,” Pidge said reasonably. “And Lance and Keith and Coran would just think we were crazy. And Allura’s still sleeping after all the energy she expended.” And Elslince was probably still in her room. And Shiro… it couldn’t be Shiro’s ghost, could it?

Hunk scrunched up his face unhappily. “I don’t like this, I don’t like this, I don’t like this…”

Somehow, his fear made her feel braver. “Just stay behind me.” Not so she could protect him, more so that she’d have some padding if she screamed and bolted.

Together they crept down the little-used corridor towards the sound, and turned the corner. Pidge’s heart was thumping fit to burst, louder in her ears than the soft footfalls, and she was certainly ready to scream at anything alarming.

But all that she saw was Elslince, walking slowly away from them down the other corridor. There was something aimless in her walk, though she wasn’t shuffling at all. Pidge gasped – she hadn’t expected _that_ , not really, and Hunk gasped more. Elslince turned her head to look at them, but it was as if she didn’t really see them. Her blue eyes were flat and yellow-rimmed, her expression lifeless, her hair hanging straight and limp. _Maybe Elslince is a ghost now,_ Pidge thought, and nearly freaked herself out with the idea. But no, her shoes were making contact with the ground, she cast a shadow, and she appeared to be breathing. She’d check the Castle’s internal sensors later, make sure she was giving off a thermal signature and stuff, too.

Elslince continued her walk and drifted around a corner, out of sight.

“That… was super weird,” Hunk said.

“I’m with you, Hunk,” Pidge said. “Let’s get back to work. I guess she’s gotta work through things her own way.”

“Yeah… I feel bad for her.”

“Me too…”

It was only two days later that Pidge walked into the Green Lion hangar, still yawning from too little sleep, and suddenly yelled in surprise. Elslince was there, tapping on her tablet, looking like nothing was significantly different from a few weeks ago, before any of this ‘final battle’ insanity. Her hair was all voluminous and wiggling again.

“Ahh! Ahhhhuuuuhhhh…” Pidge said intelligently, once she was done screaming.

Elslince looked up and smiled. Pidge could tell it was with an effort, but still, she smiled. “Oh, hello, Pidge! I was hoping you would come by here first.”

“You doin’ all right?” Pidge asked cautiously.

Elslince nodded. “I am fine now. I’m more concerned about you. I’m sorry for abandoning you all the last few days.”

“No, no,” Pidge began, but Elslince wasn’t having any of it.

“I shamed my vocation as a doctor. I should have checked on all of you before wallowing in my own-” She ended her sentence abruptly, started a new one. “So! It’s time for a check-up. I don’t care what the Castle’s magic healing tubes say. I want to be certain there’s no lasting damage.”

“Um…”

“If you have time, that is,” Elslince amended. “I know you’ve been working hard.” Her gaze dropped away.

“No, it’s okay!” Pidge smiled at her. “If my mom were here, she’d tell me how important it is to see a doctor regularly. So, uh, where do you want me, doc?”

“I brought my instruments down from my room,” Elslince said, patting a small bag beside her. “If you could sit just in your desk chair here… I promise not to poke anything where it’s not supposed to be.”

“I wasn’t worried about it until you said that,” Pidge said, giggling nervously, and Elslince laughed too. That was true, Elslince was getting pretty familiar with how humans worked, but she still thought things like ‘iron-based blood’ were weird. Still, Pidge trusted her not to accidentally turn her inside out, and the physical exam seemed to go pretty normally from what Pidge remembered of doctor’s visits at home on Earth.

When she was done, Elslince leaned forward in her own chair and looked like she wanted to say something else. “I had a question about your fighting, actually.”

“What’s that?” Pidge asked.

“There was something I noticed before the… the battle, but I didn’t want to bring it up in case it caused you stress. But that is, often when you train in the sparring room, with the others or by yourself, you seem to rely mostly on instinct and reflex to survive.”

“Um, yeah,” Pidge squirmed uncomfortably. “I had some training at Galaxy Garrison, and before that I had martial arts classes, you know, but even if I’m good at thinking my way around tech, and I can see things that I can use to my advantage in a fight, sometimes I freak out.”

“I understand,” Elslince said. “I don’t like fighting at all, but as part of the Teleran Resistance, I had extensive self-defence training. I was wondering if you would like to learn it, to add to your repertoire?”

“Uh, sure!” It couldn’t hurt, could it? And it meant she’d get to spend more time with Elslince.

Her agreement seemed to make Elslince happier. “Please let me know when you have free time, then. And thank you for letting me examine you. You appear to be fine, except for the lack of sleep.”

“I knowww…”

“I know you know,” Elslince said, tapping the tip of Pidge’s nose. “Don’t let it become a habit.”

“Righty! As soon as the Castle’s back to fully functional, I’ll be better about it. I promise!”

Self-defence with Elslince was deceptively challenging. She wouldn’t have thought the gentle, pacifist doctor to be so ruthless about drilling. She could rival some of the Galaxy Garrison sergeants, Pidge considered a couple weeks later, even if she never yelled, never even sounded harsh. How could she be so patient, and yet so demanding? The Resistance probably didn’t give her a choice in learning self-defence, but still.

And just when Pidge was about to suggest a break, Elslince suddenly made a playful growling noise and tackled her to the ground, and then there was _hair everywhere_. Not in her clothes, thank goodness, that would have been weird, but tickling her face, her arms, her knees. Pidge yelled and giggled and struggled, trying not to pull the hair.

Elslince giggled back and let her up eventually. “My older sister used to do that to me all the time.”

“You must have been close,” Pidge blurted out, and immediately regretted it. Elslince didn’t need to be reminded about losing people, not now.

Elslince’s expression sobered, but she didn’t look mournful, only wistful. “We were. She loved to tease me, called me a nerd, put bugs in my hair… but she was very protective of me. She was kind and encouraging about me becoming a doctor, and she never let anyone talk down to me.”

“Sounds kinda like me and my brother,” Pidge said. “Except he didn’t put bugs in my hair, ew. That must be awful with your kind of hair.”

“Don’t even talk about it,” Elslince said, laughing a little. Pidge saw her hair cringe, just a little, at the thought of bugs. “But we didn’t have parents, and even though we lived with our grandparents, she was more like my mom than my sister sometimes.”

“That must have been rough,” Pidge said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Elslince said. “My grandparents and great-grandfather were good to us. I was well-loved growing up, just like you were.”

“Yeah.” Pidge considered the similarities they shared. “Wait, are you saying you see me as a little sister!?”

“Is that bad?” Elslince asked, startled.

“Nah, I guess not. Just, I’m tired of being the ‘little’ sister!”

“That’s fair,” Elslince said, laughing. “I got tired of being the little sister, too. You’ll find someone, I’m sure!”

Pidge snorted. “I hope so. But first, gotta get my brother back.” And her dad, of course. But her dad wasn’t a sibling.

“You’ll do that too.”

“I betcha Shiro finds him, and they come back together, what do you think?”

“I think that would be delightful.”

Keith winced as he shifted his arm. He’d pulled a muscle with a minor mishap in the Red Lion on his daily search for Shiro, and now his shoulder was bothering him. He’d rest it that night, but he needed to go out tomorrow again. And the next day, if he didn’t find Shiro tomorrow. And the day after. If his arm was still bothering him tomorrow, maybe he’d chance one of those sleep pods. He wasn’t fond of the idea, though. He didn’t like feeling trapped.

“Did you hurt yourself?” asked a soft voice, and there was Shiro’s girlfriend Elslince – she’d caught sight of him at the crossroads of two corridors, and now she was approaching him with a worried look on her face.

“I’m fine,” he grunted, trying to wipe any sign of discomfort off his face.

“I’d still like to take a look, if I may,” she said. “You’re doing everything you can, and I want to do everything I can to support you.”

He sighed and looked away. He didn’t care about being rude, but it _was_ Shiro’s girlfriend – she had as much reason to want him found as Keith did. And he _had_ brushed off her post-Zarkon medical exam. “…Fine.”

Her expression eased a little. “Could you come back to my room? My tools are in there.”

He followed her silently. Once they’d arrived at the Garden, she asked him to sit and remove his jacket, and then asked him to move his arm. He did, but he had to wince. She prodded it a little, then rummaged around in her bag until she produced something that appeared to be a strangely-shaped bandage, and a chemical ice pack. She wound the bandage around his shoulder rather tightly, then applied the icepack on top. “Keep it there for about fifteen doboshes, but don’t remove the bandage until tomorrow. If you can put the coldpad on for fifteen doboshes tomorrow morning, that would help too.”

“Fifteen doboshes…” His gaze zoned out as he did the math. “That’s maybe twenty minutes, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It sounds about right. May I just check you over for anything else?”

He sighed again. He was there, he might as well put up with it. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” she said, and went through an abbreviated physical, checking his eyes, his throat, his pulse.

She had finished, and he was already half-way to the door, jacket under his good arm, when she said things he really didn’t want to hear. “Don’t push yourself so hard, Keith.” He glared at the door without answering, but he did hesitate in his stride, and she took that as encouragement, apparently. “He doesn’t want you to kill yourself for him. Even if he’s in trouble, he wants you hale and whole.”

“I’m fine,” he growled. “I was just startled at the time. It won’t happen again.” He noted with approval that she’d said “doesn’t” instead of “wouldn’t”. She, too, believed.

She inhaled, sounding like she wanted to say something else. Keith hoped she wouldn’t. He thought she was all right, and she was certainly the least diva-like person on the Castle – himself included, he had to admit – and he could see why Shiro liked her, why the others liked her. He kind of liked her himself, distantly, platonically, even with her crazy hair. And he would rather get treated by her than by the sleep pods. He just didn’t want to continue this train of thought.

But all she said was: “Good luck. Rest well.”

He nodded and left quickly.

Lance winced as he shifted his arm, and quickened his stride through the private quarters section, looking for the Garden. He rapped smartly on the door in a funky rhythm when he arrived. “Hellooo! I come bearing gifts!”

The door slid open and there she was, the vision of beauty Shiro had rescued from the dastardly Galra, Elslince the Green. She sounded like a medieval princess when he called her that, so he did, in his head, frequently. “Oh! Lance! You didn’t have to…”

He presented her with the pot under his good arm with a flourish – or as much of one as he could manage. “Hey, someone’s gotta keep you supplied. Gotta pick up the slack, you know, until he gets back.” He’d been gone for two months. They’d find him soon.

She gave him a smile that was only half-sad. “I think you give me far more than he ever has. He only had the idea first.”

“Oh, well… Gotta pretend everything’s normal?” He went for a cheesy smile, saw a little more of the sadness lighten.

But she’d seen the stiffness in his arm. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Yeah… It was a stupid little thing, I reached too far, and now I think I pulled a muscle. Could you take a look at it?”

“Of course. Have a seat and take off the jacket.” There was something odd in her smile, something that said “you and Keith are more similar than you want to admit”, he’d seen that look before, and he didn’t particularly care for it.

“Hoodie,” he corrected her, but did as he was told.

Her fingers were strong but gentle as she investigated his shoulder, binding it up securely to keep the swelling down, putting an icepack on it. It gave him pleasant tingly feelings all up the back of his neck to see her so focused, she was so intent and professional. It was really relaxing, together with the ambience of the Garden. If the lighting had been lowered he might have fallen asleep. Or hit on her some more. Not seriously, she was madly in love with Shiro, but it might make her smile. And hey, she was a literal green alien space babe, he couldn’t pass up every chance to live down to Captain James T. Kirk.

But he passed up this one, since the lighting wasn’t right, and he wasn’t really in the mood for it.

“How else are you doing?” she asked, when she was more or less done. “Anything else I can help with, anything you want to talk about?”

He pulled his hoodie back on, squirming a little uncomfortably. He wanted to talk about it, but she didn’t need his whining in her life, did she? She noticed, and gave him an encouraging look. “Well… I’m just feeling… y’know, kinda… not hopeless, exactly, but… Well, it doesn’t really seem like we’re doing much. We go out, fight some Galra, we can’t form Voltron so we can’t fight a lot of Galra… Everyone seems distracted, y’know? Like, we all get along fine individually, but it’s like we couldn’t form Voltron even if we had a fifth Paladin.” Pale blue eyes flicked up at her. “He wasn’t just our leader, is what this is all telling me. Or maybe just missing any one of us and the team isn’t a team. Well, I dunno, we ought to be better than that, shouldn’t we? We’ve operated on our own before. Even when Allura was captured, we kept it together and went after her. But then we had Shiro to keep us focused.”

“It’s hard when you don’t know where to go,” she said quietly, looking down.

“Yeah, exactly. And it’s kinda depressing, all of this thinking.” She knew that better than him; how she kept it together, he didn’t know. “Anyway, videogames aren’t helping that much, taking care of Kaltenecker helps a bit but… And I don’t know what I expect babbling about it to do, I guess I just want to talk about it with someone who… who really gets it.”

She nodded, as if she really got it. “You’re welcome to come and talk any time, you know. I’m not a psychiatrist, but if you find it helps to talk, please – I’m here.”

“Thanks, Elslince. That’s really nice of you.” And maybe she didn’t want to be alone, either. Not that he had a chance, he wasn’t thinking about it that way – much. Okay, maybe a little, could you blame him? “Well, thanks for looking after me and my dumb arm.” He gave her a bright grin. “Say hi to Hermione for me!” Hermione was his rosebush.

“Take care,” she said, smiling back.

He was glad she could smile, that he made her smile – he tried to make everyone smile – but without Shiro, it wasn’t the same as before.

“So how’re you holding up?” Hunk asked, measuring out the fertilizer for the lower-ph plants.

She blinked at him. It hadn’t been that confusing of a question, had it? “I’m fine.”

Fine, by Voltron’s left foot. Which was him and Yellow. “You sure? You must be hurting worse than the rest of us.” He still hadn’t forgotten the creepy ghost behaviour he’d witnessed with Pidge. It might have been four months, but the sort of pain that caused that kind of behaviour didn’t just disappear.

Her forehead wrinkled and she turned away, fussing over something with shiny leaves and orange flowers. “It hurts, yes. But the Paladins need my support, not my distraction.”

“Don’t worry about the Paladins,” he said, sprinkling the fertilizer around. “Or at least, won’t you let us worry about you too? Or at least me. I know some of the others get stuck in their own heads a bit. Not going to name any names.” He coughed around Keith’s name anyway, and saw a faint smile on her lips.

“Keith is trying harder than any of us,” she said.

“Even if he’s just stubbornly beating his head against a wall,” Hunk retorted. “Brute force is probably not going to find Shiro when your field of search is _the entire universe_. I have more faith in the Voltron Coalition’s intelligence feelers, even though it feels lazy.” Still, lazy was kind of his thing, wasn’t it? No sense in working harder than necessary, not when working efficiently did the job way better.

“I have faith in both,” she said gently.

“That’s fair. But you changed the subject.”

“I did?” She blinked at him again.

“Yeah. Well, I guess you did answer the question. So, is there anything we can do to help you?”

She smiled at him. “Just keep doing what you do.”

Looked like he’d have to pry a little deeper. “C’mon, surely it’s nothing embarrassing.”

“Well…”

Yes! He knew there was something!

Elslince looked off into the distance wistfully. “This would more be something suited to Pidge, perhaps, but… I miss sunlight, real sunlight. And forests. And not hearing all these mechanical sounds all the time. The air ventilation, the hum of electricity, the engines when they’re in use – it’s never truly quiet, even when it’s quiet. Not like when all you can hear is the whisper of the breeze, and maybe some insects. I’ve tried the virtual reality room, where Kaltenecker lives, but it’s not the same. Or going on missions with the Paladins. I appreciate it, but it’s still noisy.”

“Right,” he said. “I can live without sunlight and forests, but where you came from – that was a huge part of your life, wasn’t it?”

“Yes…”

Wait, hadn’t Shiro taken her out every now and then? Had they been visiting forests or something? He’d never thought to ask. “You wanna go on a field trip? There’s a little planet we passed a few days ago, green, lots of undeveloped area, orbiting a small yellow star. Should be perfect, right?”

She tried to hide her excitement, but her hair gave her away, coiling more quickly than usual. “I… I would be very grateful.”

Seeing her bask in the sun, her eyes closed and face upturned to greet its rays, was almost as relaxing as basking in the sun himself. Her hair was billowing out in a big cloud around her, as if it were basking in the sun too. Maybe it was, he didn’t know how Telerans worked. It looked almost like it was breathing.

“Thanks, Hunk,” she said after a long, silent while. “This is just what I needed.”

“You ever want to go out, just let me know,” he said, sitting next to her, leaning back on his hands. “Or Pidge, she needs to get away from her computer every now and then, right?”

“Mm.”

He hesitated to volunteer the next bit. “And… you ever need a hug, you know where to find me.”

“A hug?” She opened her eyes and looked over at him. “You are a huggable person, but… why?”

“Well…” He looked away, a little embarrassed. “You’ve been keeping so much inside, trying not to ‘bother’ us or something, but even you can use a boost now and then, right? And hugs are good for mental health.”

“You care so much about us all,” Elslince said quietly. “Maybe you should become a doctor.”

He waved it off self-deprecatingly. “Eh, I’m good with engineering.”

“Well, I think I will take you up on that, now and then.” And she matched action to words before they left, letting him give her a big, squishy, platonic hug. Everyone needed a big squishy hug sometimes. He hoped it helped. It was one little thing he could contribute to keeping everything going until Shiro got back.

He slipped, and fell, and landed on his rear quite hard, unable to stop the exclamation of “Quiznak!” from leaving his mouth. Good thing none of the chil- the Paladins were around. (Yes, they were all competent and a far cry from the strange, even suspicious aliens he’d met upon waking from the cryo chamber, and he respected them. That didn’t mean he didn’t still think of them all as children.)

“Coran?” he heard calling down the corridor; he hadn’t been as alone as he’d thought. Drat. “Are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine, Elslince, thank you,” he called back, just as the girl came into view. Her worried expression eased at seeing him sitting up with a disarming, sheepish look – at least, he hoped it was a disarming, sheepish look.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Quite sure. You’re an expert, I know, but really, you don’t have to waste your time doling out band-aids for a little bump.”

She chuckled a little. “Any other way I can help, now that I’m here? I have no pressing tasks right now.”

He was about to brush her off, but then thought about it. “Actually, if you could read off the panel for me, it would be a great help.” That was why he’d fallen in the first place, trying to read the panel while hanging from the maintenance shaft. With her to tell him the results, he could stay in the shaft and actually _fix_ it. And since she’d been helping for so long, she’d started to pick up a little it of technical knowledge, though she didn’t seem likely to be able to fix the Castle on her own in the near future. Still, every bit helped.

It went a lot faster after that, and he was able to close up the maintenance shaft only seven or eight doboshes later. “Another job well done! Thank you, Elslince!”

“You’re welcome!” She smiled to see him give the panel a fond caress. “You love the Castle so much.”

“Yes… She was built by my grandfather, you know! Ah, the stories I could tell you about getting lost in these shafts as a boy… would probably freeze your heart, actually, come to think of it. Rest assured it doesn’t happen anymore. Usually.”

“Usually?” She gave him a skeptical look, and he gave her an inscrutable one in return.

“Of course. In actual fact, I know every inch of the Castle, inside and out. I could find my way about in my sleep!” He’d been a little more hesitant than Princess Allura on Pidge and Hunk’s proposed plan that had resulted in the Garden, as damaging his beautiful ship in any way was terribly upsetting, but he had to admit the results had been quite lovely. “Don’t worry, I haven’t been almost-vapourized from taking a wrong turn since I was about fifteen deca-phoebs old and getting my first real look at how she worked.”

“Coran!” The dramatically alarmed expression made him smirk. But then she sighed and shook her head. “What would we do without you?”

He blinked, honestly surprised. He tried not to let on just how much work he did about the Castle, or work in general for Team Voltron, but he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that Elslince of all people noticed. “And what would we do without you, Doctor Elslince?”

“Use cryo chambers,” she said facetiously. That point of contention had been smoothed over long ago, to the point where it was rather a joke between them.

“The cryo chambers are far less charming,” he said, with a gallant bow, and was rewarded with a slight blush. He had to confess, privately at least, that she made his job easier. ‘Chief Medical Officer’ had been one of his functions on the Castle of Lions prior to her joining the team, and it was one less responsibility for him to deal with. He could focus on keeping the Castle running properly, on his role as Royal Advisor, on taking care of the team’s general well-being without having to worry so much about their medical health.

Of course, taking care of the team was far more difficult without Shiro. The young man didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation, and had probably endured as much hardship as Coran had, in different ways of course, in a _far_ shorter period of time, but he certainly knew how to work towards a goal. The team was sorely lacking for his absence, even without the camaraderie that he brought, the fondness they felt towards him.

However, while Shiro was the steadiest Paladin, befitting his role as Black Paladin, Coran had hoped that the budding romance between him and Elslince would have made him more aware of his own emotional and mental health. Coran didn’t consider himself a hypocrite for keeping his own to himself. He knew how to process his feelings. Most of the younger ones didn’t. Except perhaps for Lance. There was a good reason the Blue Paladin was his unofficial favourite of the new generation. But Shiro didn’t, not yet, at least not that he’d noticed. Perhaps it had begun and he was just unaware?

Well, perhaps they’d see when Shiro was found.

Allura stepped onto the dark and empty bridge, and stopped short. Dark it may have been, but it was not empty. Someone was kneeling, slumped at one of the bridge consoles, and judging from which console it was, she had a good idea of who. “Elslince?”

The figure jumped, and hastily pulled themselves together, it was plain to see. “Ah! Hello.” It had been discovered that there was a dedicated medical officer’s post on the bridge, and it was where Elslince posted herself while the team was on space missions. And apparently in between those as well.

Allura had heard sniffling, and abandoned her plan of double-checking their course. There were more important things to take care of. “How are you doing?”

“I’m all right, really, Princess.”

“I wish you’d call me Allura,” Allura said, walking towards her. “Like everyone else does. You’re allowed. And I’m not sure I believe you.” She crouched down beside the Teleran girl. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Elslince wiped her eyes, but as fast as she did, more tears fell. “It’s been a difficult day. I-I miss him so much, and I worry, and I just want to _know_ …”

“I know,” Allura said, reaching out to hug her. “It’s all right to cry. It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry… I don’t mean to…”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Come here.”

Elslince’s self-control gave way and she leaned into Allura’s shoulder, sobbing quietly.

When the flood had stemmed a little, and Elslince had raised her head, rubbing at her yellow-rimmed eyes, Allura gave her a wistful smile. “Feel a little better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. And if you ever wish for company, I’m always glad to listen.”

“I… might take you up on that. Thank you… Allura.”

They might still be a long way from having girly sleepovers together, but Allura glowed a little inside at those words.

She lay in their bed alone, unsleeping, curled on her side. She still left space for him on the other side. There were no talismans he had left her, nothing she could physically cherish besides one short white hair from his forelock that she’d found on his pillow. She held it now, marvelling as she sometimes did at its peculiarity to her: how it wasn’t truly white, more… translucent. It was very strange that humans’ hair drained of colour with age or stress. Her people’s didn’t do that. It was part of her fascination for him.

He’d been gone a little over six months. Voltron was still spinning its wheels, doing its best to fight the good fight against the Galra Empire. They’d struggled for a long time with the only four Lions they could field. The Black Lion had been still and silent in its hangar; Lance said it was moping. They could only do so much, and their morale was still dragging, missing their leader, their balance, their wholeness. The only saving grace was that Zarkon seemed to be well and truly gone, and the Galra, while not giving up ground easily, had ceased most of their aggression against the free peoples of the universe.

But a few weeks previous, Keith had been prevailed upon to finally end his daily searches – not because they were turning up nothing, but because the universe needed Voltron once more. Needed Keith to pilot the Black Lion in Shiro’s place, and the others to reshuffle accordingly. Only Elslince refrained from trying to sit in a pilot’s seat; she still had her oath, and she held to it. She didn’t have the experience or the motivation to fight like them anyway.

Perhaps it was foolish of her to miss him so, after only a couple months at his side. And yet, he had changed her life, saved her planet, saved her, brought her into a wider world, given her new reasons to smile, given her heart reason to jump for joy. He’d only treated her with kindness and respect, loved her, allowed her to help him. His absence was a deep hole in her heart, deeper even than the only-slightly older wound her sister had left. The very hope that he was still alive made the ache worse. She could hide it, she could smile and carry on with life.

But when she had time to herself, she pulled out her one white hair and thought of him. “Where are you?” she whispered to the dim blue glow of her room. Was he trapped, imprisoned, ensconced in cryogenic sleep? Or was he even now fighting to return to them, and was only too far away to know how? “Do you think of me as I think of you?” If only she could teleport to his side, rescue him if he needed it, or simply embrace him and be embraced in turn, to feel whole in the echo of his beating heart. If only she had the chance, nothing else would matter. She would be home, and happy.

So she lay, and pondered, and yearned, as she did daily, for a man – a strange pale brown man with beautiful grey eyes, the only man she would ever truly love.

A cry rang through the intercom. “Elslince! Come quick! The Black Lion – we think it’s-”

She put the hair back in its clear plastic envelope with trembling fingers, stashed it under her pillow, and bolted for the door.


	6. Haircut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah Shiro’s terrible haircut S3-onwards is all Elslince’s fault. XD (In the show I’m sure he did it himself, so they’re both bad at haircuts.)

Chapter 6: Haircut

He was unconscious when they pulled him from the fighter, almost unrecognizable when they pulled his helmet off. Elslince gasped when she saw: his hair had grown, flowing in straggling, tangled piles over his shoulders, over his face. Wasn’t it a _bit_ long for a human having only been gone six months? She wasn’t sure. His stubbled cheeks were haggard, his eyes bloodshot and sunken, and she could feel the bones of his ribs as she checked him over on the stretcher. He looked forty deca-phoebs old, or older, like an old man. “He’s dehydrated and malnourished,” she said, hands flying through her work so no one would notice them shaking. “The cryo-pods will help with that.” And any other injuries his strange, hodge-podge armoured outfit was hiding.

She held her pride aloof. Shiro needed the best care they could provide, and the cryo-pods would heal him far faster than any treatment she could give.

She looked up at the others, saw the wild emotions in theirs that echoed hers. “Get him there right away.”

“Of course,” Coran said, and with Lance, double-timed the stretcher away. She kept pace, jogging with them – as if she was letting him out of her sight now! The others followed with equal haste.

Keith helped her undress him, redress him in soft sleeping clothing, and she tried not to weep at what she saw. So many new scars… she’d known every one of his old ones, but these new ones were awful, some of them clearly self-cauterized, and she winced at the pain he must have gone through. And he’d been gone so long… But the cryo-pod would restore him to health. She was more worried for his mind. How much did he remember? How bad would the nightmares be this time? How much could one person endure in one lifetime?

Would he still let her love him?

She watched over him without rest as he slept, watching as he visibly improved over the next two days. His colour returned, the haggard look left his face, and she knew angry red lines across his body would be fading to white, dark bruises dissolving away.

But he still looked tired and unhappy, and when the pod opened and his eyes did as well, that look didn’t change. But he saw her, and his expression eased a little, and so did hers. She held out her hand to him silently, and he took it, gaze now fixed on the floor, black and white hair trailing over his face. Together they walked to her room – their room, although she was considering… did he want her to stay with him? If he wanted privacy, she was happy to let him have it. She could sleep somewhere else for a while.

“Are you sure you want me in here?” he asked, when they got there, the first words he’d spoken since they’d found him, and his voice was hoarse with disuse.

She gave him not-quite-a-smile and whispered “Always.”

He collapsed on the bed as soon as the door closed, and she sat beside him with the lights off, running her hands through his long, unkempt hair.

A few hours later, the door opened and Keith took a step into the dark room. “Shiro. …Can I have a minute?”

Shiro didn’t answer for a moment, then said “Sure” and pushed himself to sitting.

“Should I go?” Elslince asked.

Keith shrugged. “I don’t care.”

So she stayed, and listened to the tale of what he could remember of his imprisonment – not much, again – and escape – most of it – listened as Shiro and Keith tried to figure out what had happened that day so long ago. She was just glad that he hadn’t forgotten _them_ , even if the Galra had still removed his memories of his imprisonment. She wondered if it was on purpose or not, whether it was a threat or a mercy.

“Well…” Keith said eventually, softly, “if you’re feeling up to it… the rest of the team would be thrilled to see you up and around again. They need you, you know.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said, not meeting his eyes. “I’ll try.”

“Okay. We’ll be on the bridge.”

“Hey, Keith?”

Keith stopped in the doorway and half-turned. “Yeah.”

“How many times are you gonna have to save me before this is over?” But Shiro had a tiny smile on his face. Elslince had the feeling she was seeing a piece of their past, a close bond forged through trials and experiences she would never know about. Perhaps she shouldn’t have stayed.

Keith paused, then answered with a tiny smile of his own. “As many times as it takes.”

When Keith had gone, Shiro heaved a long sigh and let his head fall to his chest. “No rest for the wicked.”

“You’re not wicked,” she protested, a lock of hair brushing against his shoulder.

“It’s an expression,” he said, with the ghost of a smile. “Probably from a book. I guess I’d better get tidied up. Will you… will you help me?”

“What do you need?” she asked.

“A shower. Clothes.” He raised a hand to his face, to rub his chin, push his white forelock out of his eyes. “A shave and a haircut. Then maybe I’ll feel more like myself again.”

“I can prepare the first three, but the last…” She’d never… _cut_ hair in her life. She knew Shiro could shave himself, but an actual haircut…?

“I’m not sure I can do it myself,” he said, his eyes shyly seeking hers. Of course she relented.

The castle’s fabricator had made new clothes for him while he slept, and he wore them when he returned from his shower, his hair wet but less tangled. The new clothes’ short sleeves allowed her a clear view of his arm, the definition of the muscles in it, and she watched in fascination as they tensed and released under his pale pink-brown skin as he continued to towel his hair. He hadn’t lost too much of his muscle mass in captivity, and while she approved from a medical standpoint, she also approved as a straight woman. He’d already shaved, and looked deca-pheobs younger already. All that was left was the haircut.

Her heart trembled as she considered the wish she’d harboured while he slept. “Shiro… If I might…”

“El?”

The familiarity of the short form of her name reassured her. “There was something I wanted to do while you had long hair. May I… twine mine with yours…?”

He blinked at her, letting the towel rest on his shoulders, not understanding. “Sure, whatever you like.”

She would take it and explain later. “Just… stay where you are.” She brought her face closer to his, like she might kiss him, and her hair reached around her to snake into his dark damp locks, lifting them from his shoulders, blending the three colours. His eyes searched hers for context, but she couldn’t give it to him through her eyes alone. She put her hands on his shoulders for balance, and his hands sought her waist. They stayed there a moment, then suddenly pulled her close, so she was sitting on his lap, his arms tightly around her, clinging to her with the desperation of a man about to fall from a cliff.

“God, El,” was all he said, the look in his eyes sad and broken and disbelievingly hopeful all at once, and then he kissed her.

“I’m here,” she whispered when they parted. “I’m here. You’re here. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Thanks, El,” he said, and she set about trying to slowly disentangle her hair from his. “…I can see why you wanted to do that. I… like my hair short though. It doesn’t get in the way.”

“I know,” she said. Though he still didn’t entirely know why she’d done it. “I’ve gotten used to you short-haired humans, anyway. I-I’ll do my best…”

And she did try her best, with her bandage scissors, to get his hair to resemble what it had before – very short on the sides, a little longer on top, and the white forelock even a little longer still. The sides weren’t shorn to his head, and the forelock she accidentally clipped a bit too short, but he looked a bit more like himself when she was done. At least she’d gotten it even on all sides. “It’s not perfect…”

He didn’t even check his reflection, only smiling gently up at her. “It looks fine. And I’m glad I didn’t have to do it myself.”

“I’m keeping all this,” she mentioned, sweeping up the longest loose strands into a bundle. “I know it’s no longer part of you. But…” She suddenly clutched them to her heart, looking away, unable to tell him how much she’d treasured the single hair she’d found while he was gone. Now she had a trove of them.

“I don’t know why it’s important to you, but go ahead,” Shiro said, and pushed himself to his feet. He took a deep breath and raised his head, and suddenly he seemed to be himself again, projecting a confident smile, compassion in his eyes. “I’m ready. Let’s go see the others. I missed them too.”

It was all an act, she could tell, but a vital one, so she took a place at his side, giving him a confident smile of her own. She didn’t touch him, letting him stand on his own. “Welcome back.”

“Keith…”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Keith said quietly, walking past her.

She turned to face him. “I think it’s important. Just to point out that you spent so much time looking for him, and now he’s back, you don’t want to listen to him.”

Keith glared at her. “He doesn’t understand what we’re up against. I made the right decision. I think.”

“I won’t make judgement on that. But Keith… in the Resistance, we had this thing called Mission Control; they would guide us through our field assignments and advise us, coordinate our movements. They try to know everything, but they can only know so much. And if you go off and do your own thing, they know even less and can’t help you. Shiro is ours, and he’s only trying to help to the best of his ability.”

He sighed impatiently and looked away. “I get it, but I’m supposed to be in charge of the mission. So if I think there’s a better course of action, I’m going to take it. I thought he would trust me the way-” He dropped his voice and mumbled: “Besides, he ought to be in the Black Lion in the first place.”

“All right,” she said, and let him walk away.

When the day was over, she returned to their room first, while Shiro reacquainted himself with other changes around the Castle and she checked that everything was ready for him to return to residence.

And when he opened the door, he practically fell on her, wrapping her into a tight hug, burying his face in her neck. She held him, feeling his breath, his heartbeat, her own heart filling with feelings until she felt she was going to burst.

“You sure you want me in here?” he mumbled into her neck. “I can always find another place to sleep.”

“Stay with me,” she pleaded with him. “Neither of us wants to be alone.”

“They might have… Every time they take me, I lose more.”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. Because we love each other.” She felt bold, saying it, but she felt him relax a little.

He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She stood on her toes to kiss him, and it was a kiss that felt like it would never end. His longing and passion were almost overwhelming, but hers surged to meet him, and for a while she hardly knew which way was up and which was down, so carried away she was in the feeling of _him_. His human scent, the warmth that he wrapped around her, the brush of his forelock against her forehead, the taste of his mouth, salty compared to her own people.

It was strange, to lie in bed and feel his bulk across from her, and he seemed restless at first, shifting, making minute adjustments every couple doboshes. At length he reached out to her, his hand resting on her side. It was his prosthetic, and it was cold and alien through her thin sleeping clothes, but she didn’t care. She took it as an invitation and moved closer, to snuggle into his front, and he put his arm about her, breathing into the crown of her head. His dry baritone voice rolled through her, a comfort she’d been without for far too long. “You know when I was with you before, sometimes I dreamed of the darkness. But when I was in the darkness… sometimes I dreamed of you…” His voice broke and she hoped that whatever he dreamed of her, it had given him comfort, and not simply added to his torture.

Her fingers tightened on his back. “I’m here now. Rest.”


	7. Deterioration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s funny, because the first four parts of this fanfic would fit very well into this section of the show, the big time-skip between Shiro returning and the whole Season 4 stuff. I think they said it was like a year? That’s plenty of time for the Black Lion to be damaged in a random combat engagement and Shiro to crash-land on a little green planet and return a few months later to liberate it, that’s what they’re doing in general in S4. But I had already written it with the intention that Shiro met Elslince some time in the first two seasons, so I’m not changing it now. : P

Chapter 7: Deterioration

He shut the door to their room behind him and heaved a massive sigh. “That was stupid. It’s all stupid. Why are we actually doing this.”

He felt the door open behind him and took a step forward to allow Elslince to enter, turning to face her. The smile in her starry blue eyes was bright tonight. “Shiro the Hero, hmm?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” he said, embracing her. Her arms slipped around his neck as he pressed his forehead to hers. She giggled, and he wondered when the last time had been that he’d heard such a light, beautiful, care-free sound. It made him smile widely in response, and he couldn’t remember consciously the last time he’d done that, either. She was so pure and he loved her.

“You’ve always been my hero,” she said softly, kissing him. And it was a good thing she did, because he wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was a bit embarrassing, and for far different – and better – reasons than ‘acting’ as himself in Coran’s silly stage shows.

Now he was curious. “Do… you… actually _like_ the show?” he asked.

She shrugged a little, laughing. “It was embarrassing at first, but as they get better, I like it more. Though I would enjoy it even more if I didn’t know what the reality was. Still, I don’t think it’s the worst thing… except for how he’s treating Hunk. _Lance_ is the goof, not Hunk.”

“Mm.” Well, if she liked it even a little bit, he guessed he could put up with it for a little longer. Just a little. Just to see that smile some more.

“And I can’t believe that Coran found a shirt tighter than the ones you already wear, but I do appreciate it.”

“Oh geez.” He blushed, and she blushed, and there was more giggling and embarrassed coughing. Time to change the subject. “Oh! I almost forgot.” A perk of having… fans. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a card in a clear plastic envelope. “Someone gave this to me and I figured you’d appreciate it more.”

“What is- Oh! Shiro! Thank you!” Her face lit up again, in a different way this time. “Oh my trees, a real Ultraviolet Holographic Bengali card! These are extremely rare, he wasn’t a big character in the books, but he had hardly _anything_ in the show.” It seemed ‘the book was better than the show’ was a universal concept, and it amused him. Although Elslince hadn’t even seen the show until she joined the Castle of Lions, before that she’d only read the books. Apparently the show was the humans’ idea alone. “And someone just gave it to you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. It’s really ultraviolet?”

“Oh, yes. I can’t see it under normal circumstances, and I suppose neither can you, but…” She hopped to her doctor’s tools and pulled out an ultraviolet light, and the card lit up in glittering colours.

“Neat,” he said.

“Shiro! I love you!” She was giggling madly, and he chuckled – she was so adorable.

“Glad you like it.”

He was so tired these days, coming straight in from missions or strategic planning meetings, eating, showering, and passing out on their bed. It was terrifying for him at first, how the peoples of the free universe looked to _him_ as Voltron’s leader to lead _all of them_ from Galra domination, along with Allura, of course, who must have felt pretty similar in the early days, though they didn’t speak about it. And as he became accustomed to the responsibility, gained experience as a commander, the fear faded into pressure. “Patience yields focus,” he quoted to himself a lot.

Some days he barely had the time to speak to Elslince, and some days he just didn’t have the energy. And he’d thought being a rockstar was tiring. No, actually he’d always known being a soldier would be one of the most exhausting things he could set himself to, and he’d done it anyway. He’d just felt it was his responsibility to put his life on the line to protect others.

And even in all his exhaustion, he still had nightmares. He woke too frequently cradled in Elslince’s arms, heart pounding from unknown fear, his mind buzzing with yellow glowing eyes and dry hissing whispers that faded even as he tried to grasp them, to quantify them.

“I wish I had something to help you,” she said some nights. “You get little enough sleep as it is. You don’t need this in your life. It’s not fair.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “The last time I tried sleeping drugs, I had nightmares anyway. And you couldn’t even wake me up then.”

She held him closer and he relaxed against her sweet-smelling bosom.

Then one night, struggling to get away from… something… his dream-body moving sluggishly, as if trapped in quicksand… he heard a shriek that cut through his mind, snapping him out of sleep and into fearful waking. “E-El?”

And as he focused, he realized the light was not as dim as it should have been – everything was lit with a white-purple glow. His hand was weaponized, raised to strike, and a charred line was carved into the wall. Elslince cowered away from him on the other side of the bed, starry eyes huge and round in the light of his hand, arms raised in futile self-defense. “Oh, god, El, I-” He pulled power out of his hand and shrank away from her himself, feeling sick. “I’m so sorry. Oh god, oh god.”

“Shiro?” Her voice was a tremulous whisper. “It was a nightmare?”

“Yes. But I… I never fought in my nightmares before.” He curled up and pressed his face into his knees, shaking. “I-I almost-”

“You didn’t,” she said, sitting up, though she didn’t come any closer to him, and he was glad for it. He couldn’t gloss over it, though – if Elslince hadn’t felt him move, or however she was woken, and screamed, she would be dead, and he would have killed her.

“I hate it,” he burst out savagely. “I never wanted it, and I can’t get rid of it, and it’s been of use but nothing that I couldn’t have managed with an ordinary prosthetic and an energy blade.” He hated it, and he feared it, and he wasn’t truly in control of it.

“Shiro.” He felt a slim hand on his back and tensed.

“Maybe I should sleep in a different room,” he said miserably.

The hand on his back lay still. “Do you want to?”

“No. But I’m not risking your life.”

“All right.” She leaned against him, wrapping her arms and hair around him, kissed the side of his face. “You know where I am if you need me.”

He needed her so much, and it would be horribly lonely at night without her, but he had to be stern with himself. Even though he felt very small, and young, and helpless. Some leader he was.

“Shiro,” she said, and he turned his head towards her. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. You are loved. We will always love you.”

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Allura asked her to give Prince Lotor a medical exam, and so she went down to the containment chamber they’d placed him in with her bag. Shiro let her in to the transparent enclosure and then went to stand guard over by the outer door, frowning suspiciously at the Prince the whole time.

She went about her business silently, except for instructions: “Look over here, please” or “breathe in, please” for example. One of the most important things she’d been taught in the Teleran Resistance was never to speak to the enemy, not to say a single word that could be used against her or her friends. And Prince Lotor had a reputation for cunning and cleverness that had spread even to her little planet. She guessed she would be no match for him, so she guarded her tongue closely. And, she had to admit, she was a little afraid of him – tall, beautiful, apparently perfectly content to be a prisoner in the Castle of Lions. He was renowned as a warrior; even with Shiro in the room, he might hurt her or even kill her before Shiro could intervene. He wouldn’t do that, would he? He had come claiming a wish of alliance. She assumed she was safe for the time being and tried not to let her heart beat too fast.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said to her, his voice melodious and measured, probably reading her body language despite her best efforts. “You understand that, yes?”

“I wouldn’t be in here if I thought you would hurt me, Your Highness,” she answered shortly.

“You may call me Lotor. I can tell you fear me, but there is nothing to be afraid of. I only wish to be your…”

“Friend?” She shot him a slight side-eye and received a mild, charming smile in return. She didn’t trust that smile one bit. She was distracted, though, by the fact that _both_ his shoulders appeared to be sore. What had he been doing? “I will judge you by your actions, Your Highnesss. Lift your arm, please.”

He moved obediently, wincing slightly. That confirmed it. Possible dislocation, though he also appeared to be double-jointed, which would mitigate somewhat. “Small chance of my being able to _act_ any time soon in here, but I will do my best to please, of course.”

“I will follow the Black Paladin’s lead.”

“Even if he makes a mistake?”

 _Don’t say anything_ , her former master scolded her harshly in her head. _You’ve said too much already_. And she probably had, though she tried not to panic by reminding herself that he would have observed everything she’d said sooner or later. But she didn’t want to fall under his spell, become a tool he could use to pry himself further into their good graces. He would have to do it under his own merits.

“I appreciate your kindness,” he said after a minute. “I know the Galra would not send a doctor to a prisoner, even one claiming peaceful intentions-”

“Especially one claiming peaceful intentions,” she muttered, thinking of what Matt had told them of his and his father’s and Shiro’s capture.

Lotor looked vaguely surprised, but continued. “Certainly not one so skilled.” Flattery. “May I ask why you are so kind to me?”

She oughtn’t to say anything. But it would be rude to say nothing. What was the least meaningful answer she could give? “The Galra Empire has hurt us all deeply. It reminds us not to hurt others deeply unless there is a reason for it.” Her sister was dead. Shiro was scarred for life, inside and out. So even though she feared and distrusted the Prince, she would treat him well while he might prevent others from following in their wake.

“The Galra Empire, hmm?” Lavender-yellow eyes considered her, and she felt for an instant like a specimen under a microscope, though the look on his face was not harsh, only thoughtful. And then it was gone. Perhaps it was her imagination. Still, her words had had some meaning, come to think of it – she had not said ‘your people’ or ‘the Galra’ or even ‘you’. Of course he would pick up on that. “Thank you for your time.”

She dropped a bottle of painkillers gracelessly on her vacated seat and hurried to leave the enclosure. Shiro came to let her out and she walked out without looking back, as proudly as she could.

“Shiro, are you… feeling all right?” Elslince walked up to where he hunched at his station, alone, on the bridge. She had her kit with her and he wondered why.

He blinked up at her. “Yes? I’m fine. What’s the matter?”

She was frowning, and it made him uneasy. Elslince never frowned at him. “That… wasn’t like you, earlier today.”

Right. That. When the team had been stubbornly against him, even though he _knew_ the best course of action to take. “They weren’t listening,” he protested.

“They _were_ listening, but you overrode them. I’ve never heard you pull rank before, Shiro. And I know, there’s little or no room for debate in these decisions, but this isn’t how our team works, either, to be fractured like that.”

He frowned back at her. “Okay, so?”

She seemed taken aback by his defensiveness. “So why did you do that? What’s going on? Can I help with anything?”

“No, I’m fine.” He looked away. “I guess… it’s just the stress getting to me, maybe.”

“Could I take a look?” She began to reach for him, and he slapped her hand away with a stubborn glare.

“No, I said _I’m fine_.” Bad move, he knew it as soon as he closed his mouth. She was staring at him with a mixture of hurt and anger, starry blue eyes wide, holding her hand like he’d burned her, hair flinching away from him.

Guilt and shame blossomed in him like a mushroom cloud. “I-I’m sorry. Go ahead.” She began wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his arm, her actions slightly less smooth than usual, her attitude icily professional. “I… I really think it’s stress. All these politics and everything, it’s a whole different world than fighting, even than strategy. It’s a murky fog of uncertainty and…” All his babbling just sounded like excuses, and when he glanced over at her, her expression hadn’t changed. “You’re angry.” And she had every right to be.

“No,” she said slowly. “But I am upset. I don’t deserve that treatment from you, Shiro. And neither does the team.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I won’t do it again.”

She packed up her bag, apparently done. “I didn’t find anything that disproves your theory, so… take an actual break every now and then. Go punch things on the training deck. And… for the love of the Mother Tree, find some other solution when you disagree with your friends.” She turned and walked out, still looking angry, and he felt even more tired than he’d been before she arrived.


	8. I'm Not Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [SPOILERS FOR S5] Also known as Mood Whiplash: The Chapter.
> 
> The song that I was listening to was Jonathan Young’s cover of [Shut Up and Dance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RQfjmsbTzA), but it’s not specifically a Shelslince song, because first of all Elslince isn’t initiating, and second of all I use it for a whole bunch of my couples (MurShara, Quinnkuliina, HaruSAM, for instance).
> 
> The idea of Shiro being an angry boi when he was a kid was based on a tumblr post which makes him look kind of like… Akira? (I haven’t seen Akira lol)

Chapter 8: I’m Not Myself

“Yooo, Elslince.” Lance hung by one hand in the doorway of the Garden. “You got a minute?”

“Yes, come in. What is it?”

Lance waited until the door closed behind him, and even then looked around suspiciously before he began to speak. “It’s about Shiro. He’s been… weird, lately, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, I agree,” she said. “He claims it’s stress, but I’m not sure. He’s never cracked under stress before. Although he was complaining specifically about political stress, which is new for us…”

“Yeah. So we’re on the same page, then. Good. About the agreement, I mean. But, like… what do we do about it?”

She made a helpless gesture. “What can we do? He’s not himself, but besides sharing more of his responsibilities, forcing him to rest more, which he won’t like, I can’t see any good options.”

“Well… Today, something weird happened.” He told Elslince of what had happened in the astral-plane-thingy, of how Shiro had called his name, desperately, urgently, and then had no memory of it afterwards. “It’s really bugging me that I didn’t know what he said, but the fact that he didn’t remember… would you have any ideas?”

She frowned, her hand drifting to her work laptop, but she didn’t activate it. She knew Shiro’s files inside and out, he knew. “The Astral Plane is not my specialty, if that’s what it’s even called. Perhaps… PTSD from the fight with Zarkon prevents him from recalling it? He’s fought there before, hasn’t he?”

“You would know better than me, he’s the one who told you about it. You think he might have been brainwashed when they captured him this time? Maybe that’s why he’s not… quite himself? Maybe he was trying to warn us in there! Maybe that’s the only place he can be himself right now!” His theories were getting wilder and wilder, he knew, but the wilder the better, in his opinion – truth was stranger than fiction, after all.

She shuddered and shook her head violently, hair spazzing out. “I hope not! That would be awful!” She took a deep breath. “No, from what I’ve seen, it’s really him. I think it’s more likely a combination of stress and PTSD. No creature was designed to face this much relentless pressure.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But what do we do if he starts yelling out of nowhere again? I was talking to Allura, and made sure she understands Shiro’s on our side, he’s not our enemy.”

“I talked to him as well… I told him you all don’t deserve that treatment.” Her hair drooped, and he wondered if Shiro had responded poorly. “I should have told him to come talk to me if he started feeling upset, but instead of supporting him, I walked away, because he made me angry, too.”

“Whoa…” Elslince didn’t _get_ angry. Then again, Shiro didn’t get angry, either. Well, except sometimes. He was only human, after all. But not at the team, his closest friends, not until now. “Uh, well, there’s always next time?”

“Yes,” she said, with a wan smile. “I’ll do that next time I see him. Maybe I’ll go see him now, if he’s not busy. No time like the present.”

“I’m sure he wants to make things up with you too,” Lance told her, with a wink. “He’s sure lucky you decided to slum around with us.”

She reached up and patted him on the head, which he found weird. Would Allura want to pat him on the head? “You’re adorable. Thanks for coming to talk. And if anything else comes up that seems relevant, you know where to find me.”

“Sure do.”

He was about to leave when he felt a slight tug at his sleeve and looked down to see green hair coiling around it. “Lance…”

“Yeah?” Elslince was looking away, anxiously, shyly, so he spoke gently.

Starry blue eyes flicked up to meet his. “When you’re out there, in your Lions… please take care of him, if you can. I can’t be out there, and I wish I could, but… you can.”

“Yeah. I will.” He gave her a reassuring smile.

When the team got back from rescuing Pidge’s father, she went immediately to meet them. They’d sustained several injuries, but none more than Prince Lotor, so she went to treat him first. The others were mostly just a little bruised. The Prince, however, had been – allegedly – thrown _through_ multiple _mountains_. How he was still alive, let alone fighting, she didn’t know. And without a helmet, too!

He did have a mild concussion – a _mild_ concussion – but despite the dilated pupils and his mentioning he had a slight ringing in his ears, it didn’t seem he’d suffered any major brain trauma. Which would be to Lance’s disappointment, though she wasn’t going to mention it to him. As for the rest of him, no broken bones, a great deal of bruising but no internal injuries. Her hands shook as she touched him – he’d just killed, killed his own father, in melee combat. How he could have the strength to do that…

“You’re afraid again,” he said. “You think me a murderer?”

She paused and sat back, regarding him. “…No, Your Highness. I… respect your strength. I know it requires great strength to kill. More than people think it does. I hate killing, I don’t think I could do it. And to kill with a sword, not a gun…” And to kill someone he had a personal connection to, no matter how hostile…

He shrugged. “I am a warrior. It is my job to kill, to protect my people. Now that my father is dead, perhaps the universe can begin to heal. Yes, it was… difficult, but that goal kept me focused.” And his father would have killed _him_ if he hadn’t, and she could respect that, too.

“You are a warrior… yet I…” It wasn’t pity she felt, but- “I wish you were not forced to live as you have, to learn such terrible things to survive.” She glanced up at his face, saw a look of confused surprise there. “You’ve had a very difficult life, haven’t you?”

He coughed and glanced away – was he… embarrassed? “Perhaps, yet it has had its moments as well. Meeting all of you, for instance.”

Now it was her turn to be embarrassed, and she turned back to her task of checking him over. “How are you not paste?” she asked, partly joking. “ _One_ of those blows should have killed you, yet here you are.”

“I suppose my armour is just that good,” he answered in kind.

“We might need to get some for Shiro,” she said, mumbling a little, but smiling. “He’s the only one who gives me nearly as much work as you do.” Honestly, whenever the Prince arrived on the Castle, he’d just been fighting for his life with _something_. This was the third time, and the worst of the three. Yet she saw nothing preventing him from going about his life as normal. He was very lucky – skill couldn’t account for this alone.

He gave her a surprised look, and then it melted into a charming smile. “I can imagine. He is a warrior, too. Perhaps I can set something up for him.” The smile faded into something serious, but soft. “You love him, don’t you.”

She shut every emotion down, shut her mouth firmly. That was none of his business.

On the other hand… perhaps he would be able to help with Shiro’s PTSD. Except she didn’t trust him with Shiro still.

“What is it?” he asked. Trees, he was perceptive.

“Maybe I’ll tell you later,” she said, rising, her work concluded. “But yes, I worry for him. If you know anything that might help him to be… whole…”

He frowned suddenly. “What do you know?”

“What do _you_ know?” she demanded in turn. “Do you know anything?”

He shook his head slowly. “No more than you, I think. I do wonder – his prosthetic arm…”

“It was made by the Galra,” she said. “I know little more than that.”

“If the witch has her claws in him…” he said, almost as if speaking to himself.

Did the witch have her claws in him? Would that explain his inner turmoil, his mood swings? “Whether she does or not, leave him alone, Your Highness.”

The look he gave her was calculating. “Or else? You’ll hurt me? Don’t you have an oath to uphold? Would you break it for him?”

Would she give up her oath to protect Shiro? Her oath was practically her life – if she broke it, she didn’t deserve to be trusted as a doctor again. Would she dare harm another person, maybe kill someone, to save Shiro? It was not a question of how. She could utterly destroy a person with her medical knowledge. But could she? And live the rest of her life with the knowledge? And as a pariah?

“In short, yes.”

Unexpectedly, he smiled. “You, too, have strength, Elslince of Teler.” She stared at him. How was that a good thing? “You are a good friend to have.”

“We are not friends yet,” she said firmly. “But,” she went on more gently, “I think can allow you to be an ally.”

He accepted that with another charming smile, and she felt herself begin to trust him a little more. Against her better judgement.

He saw Elslince in a hall when he returned from Lotor’s Kral Zera, and she looked unhappy, frowning a little, her hair coiling in that particular way. She didn’t acknowledge him as she approached, and it felt like the bottom dropped out of his stomach when she passed him and he realized that she wasn’t going to at all. “You’re upset again.”

She spun, hair coiling tighter. “Yes.”

“But it was the right thing to do,” he pleaded with her.

She took a deep breath, folding her arms. “It was. I fully acknowledge that. And I’m still angry. You said you would try harder with the team and you didn’t. And for _me_. You didn’t tell me anything. You didn’t even leave a message to explain.”

He bowed his head. “I-I’m sorry.” No excuses this time, even though he had plenty. Like she said, she deserved better.

Her voice was gentle and sad. “You never used to have to be sorry. I want to help you, Shiro, I love you, but you’re the one shutting me out.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. What else was there to say? He didn’t know what was going to happen in the future. He couldn’t make any promises.

He heard her walking away and felt his heart constrict.

“Hey, El,” Lance hailed her, not even out of armour yet. “Can I, uh, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

Lance did that looking-around-suspiciously thing, then turned to her with a serious face, walking with her towards the lounge. “Shiro said something odd again today, thought I should tell you. He was asking me about what he said in the void, but I didn’t hear, and he doesn’t remember, like I said before, so I asked him why he was asking, and he kind of frowned at the floor and said he felt confused… and “like I’m not myself”.”

She shivered. “That’s definitely worrying.”

“I told him it was probably just lack of oxygen, but that was just so he wouldn’t worry more about it. I don’t know, was dismissing it the wrong thing to do? I think there’s definitely something up, and the fact that I don’t know what it is is driving me _crazy_.”

“Mm.” Her too, but she was thinking, her hair waving absentmindedly in loose swirls. “I’ve been trying to find a pattern in the… events but it’s so unclear and I keep second-guessing everything. Do you think maybe he couldn’t fully appear in the Astral Plane because he’s ‘not feeling himself’? Even if most of the time he seems completely himself, completely normal, mental issues can strongly affect the subconscious.”

“Sure, sounds logical to me.” Lance laced his fingers behind his head, blew out a sigh beside her. “You ever think Lotor was right about him?”

“I don’t know. It’s a frightening thought.”

“No kidding. And what would we do about it, anyway?”

“Perhaps there’s some disconnect between his conscious mind and his unconscious mind, something done to him during his capture, and his unconscious mind was the only part able to appear in the Astral Plane, and the conscious part therefore couldn’t remember.”

Lance nodded confidently. “I’ll buy it. Look, if he says anything else, I’ll let you know. I just thought I’d tell you this bit since he just told me while we were all busy passing out from oxygen deprivation.”

“Thanks, Lance. I appreciate it.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he told her confidently.

He tried to spend more time with her, at least a bit, in between missions, but though she treated him pleasantly enough, she was still subtly pulling away from him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, eventually. “I’ve been good, I promise.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, evasively, and immediately he got suspicious. What could be wrong that she wouldn’t want to tell him?

“Come on, what is it?”

She looked troubled. “Shiro…”

“Tell me!” Fear and suspicion were welling up in him. What was she up to? He backed her against the wall and slammed his prosthetic hand into it beside her. She flinched, but he was so upset, he barely noticed. “What’s going on!?”

“Shiro, you’re scaring me,” she said quietly, in an artificially calm voice, and he inhaled sharply. She was afraid – _of him_ – whom she should never be afraid of – and she was still so in control of herself. He was afraid of nebulous misgivings and he had lost all control.

As he stared, frozen and in shock, she went on, still in that quiet voice. “I’m worried about _you_ , Shiro. That’s why I don’t want to talk about it, because I know it will worry you back, and you can’t do anything about it. If I’m worrying about you, and you’re worrying about me worrying about you, we’ll be caught in an infinite feedback loop of worry, and no one needs that. You need to focus on the war, not me. I would still like attention, as your girlfriend, but not at the cost of the universe.” She reached up to touch the arm leaning against the wall beside her. “I know you want to take everything on yourself, but you can’t. Let me carry this myself. It’s how I can support you. If there’s something you can help with, I promise we’ll talk about it.”

He crumbled at her feet. “Oh god… That’s… I’m sorry.” He balled up his fists and pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “I just keep messing up. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I think it’s PTSD,” she said, and he felt green hair descending over him in enveloping tendrils. “It’s all right. We’ll get through it. Just trust me. Trust us, like you always have.”

Even though he’d let them down so many times in the last months, strained the trust between all of them and him. His last barriers collapsed and as slender green arms slipped around him, he felt tears leak from his eyes, felt his shoulders begin to shake. “Oh god. Oh god, El. I’m… scared.”

“I know.” Her soothing words flowed into his ears like water, quieting his soul. “I know. I love you, Shiro. Just breathe. Breathe in… breathe out… breathe in…”

He leaned into her, hiding in her hair, just for a short while. He could be a leader later. Right now… she was giving him his life back once again.

Things seemed better after that. He knew where she stood with him, and she could rest assured that he would trust her from now on. She smiled more when she spoke to him, and his own worries about himself, their mission with Voltron, seemed to be easier to deal with now.

It shouldn’t even have to be a conflict inside him, between control – over himself, his situation, whatever – and respect for the people around him. It never used to be. “Patience yields focus,” he said to himself frequently, still, but with a different intention now – to try to relax into the circumstances around him, to be the leader the team needed him to be. To be the man he used to be. To be the man Elslince knew he was.

He still felt a niggling feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn’t deal with it if he didn’t know what it was. He’d mentioned it to Lance already, and Lance had surely told Elslince, and until it became a problem, he would work around it.

The dishwasher was broken at that moment, and neither Pidge nor Hunk was free enough to look at it. So tonight Elslince was on dishes duty, and she’d asked him if he’d like to join her. Thus, she washed and he dried. It was quiet, methodical, and disgustingly domestic, and he loved it. Part of his mind protested that this was a waste of his time, that he needed to work on strategy, not dry dishes. It was awfully persuasive, but Elslince _had_ asked, and a little break once in a while was good, wasn’t it? It was what he told the rest of the team, and for once, maybe he’d take his own advice a little bit. He’d brought a laptop playing a deep-space captured recording of Earth pop radio Pidge had made a year ago. The audio quality wasn’t great, but it was music he vaguely knew, and it was better than nothing.

She yawned. “Mmh, I’m tired today.”

“Hi Tired, I’m Shiro,” he answered without missing a beat.

She blinked at him blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing way too hard at the mouldy old joke. “That’s hilarious!”

“It’s terrible,” he said, but he couldn’t help grinning at her response. “You hadn’t heard something like that before?”

“No, never.”

“It’s a common joke on Earth. I used to drive Keith crazy with that one. He would get so mad…”

She giggled. “I can imagine. He’s so serious. I wonder how he’s doing…”

“He’s tough. But yeah, I wonder too. Probably off being a space-ninja again.”

“A space-what?”

So he had to explain all about ninja, both the historical shinobi and the nerdy pop culture interpretation. “In conclusion, Keith is probably a space-ninja, the Blade of Marmora are all space-ninja, and don’t tell Lance, we don’t need a diplomatic incident.”

“Oh, I already figured out they were all space-ninja, it’s cool,” Lance said, leaning in the doorway. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be doing dishes? Aren’t you done yet?”

“No, do you need us?” Shiro asked, going into alert.

Lance waved his hands peacefully. “Nah, just wondering why you were still in here. How do you know so much about ninja?”

Shiro blushed a little. “I used to watch a lot of ninja/shinobi/samurai movies when I was a kid. Kinda funny, I used to be a lot like Keith when I was in my early teens.”

“No way, really?” Lance looked goggle-eyed at him, and Elslince was giggling again.

“Heh, yeah. Used to get in fights at school. Didn’t play hooky, my parents would _not_ have stood for that… but I wasn’t the greatest kid either. Didn’t really calm down until I got into Galaxy Garrison and they beat some discipline into me. Not literally,” he added hastily, seeing Elslince starting to look worried.

“Is that why you’re so protective of him?” she asked.

“Mm.” He nodded.

Lance cleared his throat. “Fascinating as this is… _dishes_.”

“All right, all right.” Shiro laughed and picked up another plate to dry. The song on the radio changed and he began to bob his head to the vaguely familiar tune. “Hey, I think we used to listen to this one in high-school.” Something cheesy and cheerful about dancing the night away, like a thousand others, yet this one somehow stuck with him better than the others.

Lance snickered. “You’ve got shit taste in music, _Dad_.”

“I have great taste in music,” Shiro countered confidently. “Also I’m only eight years older than you.”

“Your hair’s already going grey.”

“That’s because you’re a little shit.”

Elslince couldn’t wash dishes, she was laughing so hard. He laughed with her and took her soapy hands for a dance. The song was about dancing, anyway. “C’mon.”

“Shiro, I don’t know how to dance!”

“Neither do I. It’s fine. Just… kinda… wiggle to the beat of the music.” Adam had tried to teach him once, to no avail.

“Oh my god, you’re both the worst,” Lance said. “I’m out!”

Elslince was still laughing and blushing bright yellow, but surely this was a form of heaven – she was there before him, green and warm and alive, her blue eyes sparkling like a whole sea of stars. Her hands were dainty in his big rough ones, and he raised one and tried clumsily to spin her. She followed in confusion, gasping a little in delight as he pulled her closer, into a better dancing position, one arm around her, the other holding her hand. And they just grooved to the beat together, it was an easy energetic beat, and her hair grooved too, which was fascinating. Her smile was blinding in her simple joy in their motion.

She came to rest in his arms as the song ended, their foreheads touching, her hair carefully brushing over his shoulders, starry eyes looking up into his own. His heart was beating a little faster than it should have been as her arms slid up around his neck and she stretched up for a kiss.

“But seriously, Lance is right, dishes,” he whispered when they parted.

She giggled and stepped away, back to the sink. He returned to drying. For the evening, all was well with the universe.


	9. Ad Astra Obumbratio

Chapter 9: Ad Astra Obumbratio

“Hey, Elslince.” His voice resonated in her radio, and she smiled to hear it.

“Yes, Shiro?”

“Coran’s going to run a game, sounds like Dungeons and Dragons, and I’m playing – do you want to come join us? Hunk and Pidge are here too.”

“What’s Dungeons and Dragons? What’s a dragon, actually? Doesn’t sound like a game at all.”

“It’s – nevermind, it’ll take too long to explain. It’s actually called Monsters and Mana. You’ll see when you get here.”

“I have a bit more work to do, but I’ll come watch while I do it.” She was still behind on filing her last combat zone records, and she wanted to get them done today, before they had a chance to go back _into_ combat. And there had been Shiro’s strange PTSD attack during Sendak’s assault on the shield facility, even though there wasn’t anything there that ought to have triggered it… She was still trying to figure out what had gone on there, delicately, without triggering him again – hopefully without him even realizing she was trying to investigate. She didn’t think being present while he played a game would reveal anything, quite the opposite in fact, but… he sounded cheerful, and it had been too long since she’d had an extended period of time to be with him.

She came and sat in the corner, and listened, and giggled to herself at what she heard, and finished her filing, and watched them roll strange dice and yell strange words. She winced as Shiro’s character perished in a Natural 1, snorted when he said “shit” in response and then covered his mouth, though Pidge didn’t react to his language, laughed as Lance distracted the Coranic Dragon, cheered as they defeated the boss and celebrated an imaginary adventure well completed.

“Another game?” Coran asked, after Pidge, Hunk, and Allura had gone and only Lance and Shiro were left.

“Sure, yeah, whatever,” Lance said flatly, all his joy gone with Allura.

“Elslince?” Coran looked over at her, inviting her in.

“All right,” she said, her hair curling with curiosity. “It doesn’t seem too hard, not with such a good guide – I mean, Loremaster.” She smiled at Coran, who seemed both proud and embarrassed by the praise as he handed her one of the character pads.

“Why, thank you, Elslince. It’s not the easiest part, but I always had rather an inclination for it.”

“I think I’ll roll another Paladin,” Shiro mused, interrupting the moment and making Coran pratfall. “What will you be, El?”

“Hmmm.” She scanned the list of classes on the pad. “I think I’ll roll cleric. What do you think, Shiro?”

“That sounds fine,” Shiro said. “We’ll need one since Hunk – er, Block left.”

“You two are the most boring,” Lance moaned.

“I’m scared to play something else!” she protested. “At least I know what I’m doing as a healer!”

“Yeah, same here,” Shiro said. “I guess if we’re doing kind of a stand-alone, I’ll need a different backstory?”

“No, you can still play Shiro – that is, the same character, just this will happen in between the adventures with the others who left,” Coran assured him. “Lance, if you like playing Ninja-Assassin, you can keep playing as Pike, too.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.” But Lance was starting to perk up again. He was in pain, she could tell, but he could be distracted at least a little. “But next time, El, you’re rolling, like, Mage or something. At least something that makes explosions.”

“All right, all right.” She held up her hands disarmingly. “Maybe Lia – er, my character – will branch out next time. Ooh, I think I’ll be a Lapine girl, what do you think, Shiro?”

He smiled and said “Sounds good.”

They met the Altean pod in the main vehicle hangar, and as Keith jumped out of the cockpit, what Lance had been talking about on the bridge became evident. Keith had left a boy, and returned a man. Not just from the strange confidence and maturity of his spirit that she saw on his face, but physically, while still tall and lean and wiry, he’d broadened in the shoulders, in the muscle she saw under the armour. How was it possible? They’d only last seen him a few months ago. She would have assumed it to be a strange human growth spurt, but for the reactions of the others.

While they headed back to the bridge en masse, impatiently holding in their questions, Elslince turned and noticed the teal-coloured ‘wolf’, as Hunk called it, was following her. No, it couldn’t be following her, it followed Keith, didn’t it? But it was padding along quite closely behind her, and it was definitely looking at _her_. Was it just because she’d turned around? She looked forward again, then glanced again. It hadn’t looked away. She looked forward again, more than a little unsettled.

When they arrived on the bridge, she was distracted from Shiro and Keith’s mother – _Keith’s mother?_ – introducing themselves to each other, by the fact the wolf was sniffing her hair. She jumped and pulled her hair away, and it sneezed. It was a very large wolf!

“Hey!” Keith ordered. “Down, boy!” The wolf huffed, but backed off. “Sorry,” Keith said to her, with a faint smile. “I guess he likes you.”

She smiled nervously back at the wolf, as it stared at her with unblinking yellow eyes. “He’s lovely, I’m just slightly intimidated, is all.”

“Don’t worry,” Keith assured her. “He might look fierce, but he’s very loyal to those he calls friends.”

“Sounds like his master,” she said, making Keith turn a shade pinker.

“Wait a minute!” Lance exclaimed shrilly. “This is nuts! You come back with your mom, a wolf, and an _Altean!?_ ”

“Think of what we experienced in the quintessence field,” Lotor implored Allura, reaching for her hand, acting every part of her charming lover. But now they all knew it was acting, or at least it mostly was.

Allura’s eyes blazed with betrayed rage, and she seized the hand that touched hers, hurling him over her head and straight onto his beautiful face. Elslince wanted to cheer in the dead silence that followed, not for the violence, but for Allura’s strength of spirit.

And then hell broke loose, alarms blaring, intruders in the hangar – and Shiro cried out as in desperate pain and fell to his knees, clutching his head. She and Hunk knelt beside him as he groaned and grunted in pain, struggling against something she couldn’t see. She couldn’t see his face, but his fingers were digging into his scalp, as if he wanted to press them right into his brain. Thank goodness Lance was taking charge, all she could focus on was Shiro, the tension in his shoulders, his neck, his jaw, his fingers. She had no idea what was going on with him medically, and all she could do was call his name with a hand resting on his back, trying to hold onto her own terror and alarm. His heart was racing, his blood pressure surely elevated.

And then his head snapped up with an angry growl, sending Hunk flying backwards into Coran with a single punch. She gasped and screamed and flinched away as Lance stepped over her protectively. “Shiro, what are you- ungh!” Shiro sent him flying as well.

But in that moment, she’d seen a light in his eyes that was not his own. Something was controlling him. In that one horrible moment, everything became clear: the witch did have her claws in him.

Shiro materialized his bayard, flinging it at Allura, who dodged over to Romelle. But Shiro was already lunging after her, fist poised to strike. Not with its deadly glowing power, but none of them wanted to get hit by it all the same.

Allura was down. Romelle, who was clearly not a fighter to begin with, was down. Elslince stood alone before the door. She could not fight Shiro and hope to win, even if she were not emotionally compromised by their relationship. She couldn’t run from Shiro, even if she got the door open in time. He was faster, and stronger, and while his mind was controlled, he would hurt her without mercy.

But Shiro wouldn’t want her to roll over and let anyone, especially him, hurt her. And she herself wasn’t keen on getting hurt. So she dropped into a combat stance, fists before her. Somehow, she kept her voice steady, even as she begged with all her heart. “Shiro… I love you. Don’t do this.” His hostile, furious expression didn’t change, and he came for her.

It was a very short fight. She didn’t even remember the end of it.

He knew what to do – running, jumping, slashing, punching – everything he could do, to defeat his enemy. He felt strangely detached, as if someone else were pointing him in a direction and telling him to go. He didn’t question it. It wasn’t even a question of it being easier not to – he simply didn’t think of it. He seemed to know the person he was fighting, but the words that came from his mouth were not ones that he consciously formed in his brain before saying them.

His enemy was fallen to the lowest platform of the facility, too tired to reach his Galran blade. He landed before him heavily, raised his arm’s energy sword to strike with a snarl.

The man blocked his attack at the last moment, reaching his blade and rolling onto his back. Rather than go for something clever to get around the block, he opted to simply press harder, using his superior weight and strength to overpower the smaller man. He’d kill him eventually.

“Shiro, please,” the man sobbed as he strained against him. “You’re my brother.”

“ _I love you_.”

For a brief instant, the words penetrated the fog around his brain. He- he also loved-

But the moment was gone, and he felt his mouth saying more words. “Just let go, Keith. You don’t have to fight anymore. By now, the team’s already gone. I saw to it myself.”

The blade was burning the man’s face, and he howled and twisted suddenly, knocking him back. There was a sudden searing pain in his right arm and when he looked, nearly all the mechanical part was gone. And abruptly, the presence lifted from his head. He hadn’t even known everything was clouded until it was clear again.. He fell to his knees, gritting his teeth against the intense pain as the- as Keith rose to his feet, a heartbroken look in his face.

Shiro – _his name was Shiro_ – called out to him, brokenly. “Keith…?”

Keith… his little brother, by adoption if not by genetics but it didn’t matter, he loved him as fiercely as any blood brother could – and he’d just been doing his damnedest to kill him. Pride and love, that Keith had survived, that Keith had _won_ and saved him too, were drowned in the tsunami of guilt crashing over him.

He’d hurt Keith, mind, body, and soul. He’d hurt them all – every single person in the universe he’d ever cared about. Even knowing his mind had been controlled – it was no excuse, he’d been too weak to prevent it, he should have been stronger, he should have- He’d knocked out Hunk, and Coran, and Lance, and Allura, and Romelle, and – and Elslince… And before he left, he’d released some kind of virus onto the castle, designed to kill it and everyone aboard. Oh god, Elslince… Warm, beautiful, caring Elslince, who’d followed him into space because she loved him, she might be dead by now, a cold, asphyxiated corpse or blasted into atoms. They all might. And the universe would fall to evil without Voltron and its Paladins, and yet that thought seemed distant and unimportant compared to the fact that they were dead _because of him_.

And the last realization struck him – all the clones above, in their tanks – his vague, drug-fogged memories of escaping from the Galra – from a _tank_ – the code word he’d overheard while escaping, Kurōn, Japanese for ‘clone’ – _he_ was a clone too. He wasn’t the real Shiro. Couldn’t have been. Impossible. Shiro would never have given up, never hurt his friends. He didn’t deserve the Black Paladin armour he wore. He wasn’t Shiro. Never was the man Elslince thought he was. She’d loved him as truly as she loved the real Shiro, and he’d betrayed her by his existence. Only an imposter, only nothing. Less than nothing.

But even nothing could have feelings. He’d loved them all, even on borrowed memories, loved Elslince, and failed them all to their deaths.

Maybe only Keith was left by now. And Keith would die here, in this facility collapsing into a molten planet or wherever the hell they were. He couldn’t save his little brother anymore. And his brother couldn’t save him.

He could feel his consciousness fading as the platform slipped sideways under him, dimly heard Keith call “ _Shiro!_ ”. His connection to his puppetmaster had been the only thing keeping him alive, once they took over. That was all right. He deserved to die…

If only he could see them – see _her_ one more time… and tell her he was… sorry…

Elslince was waiting anxiously in the shot-up hangar for the Black Lion transit pod to arrive, and breathed a sigh of relief when it did. Coran was there to help open it, and there he was – Shiro.

But seeing him only made her more afraid for him. He lay deathly still, his face pale and bruised, his mechanical arm sliced away cleanly. She checked his pulse. Barely there. “We have to get him to a cryopod right away,” she said to Coran. “He’s on the verge of death.”

And when she checked the pod’s readings, she gasped. His mind was dark, all upper brain functions unresponsive and blank. He was a vegetative shell. What had happened out there?

At least she could be glad that his arm was gone, that he was not showing any sign of being controlled, that he would never be controlled again, if her hypothesis was correct. If he ever came back, he would be his own loving, dorky self again. But… looking at the console… that didn’t seem likely. She’d seen soldiers, Resistance members, in this state. Many of them never woke up, she knew, and those that did were not themselves.

He’d left her twice already. The third time would probably be forever.

She wouldn’t mourn him yet. Not until the battle was done. And she couldn’t watch over him, not while the castle was still in need of careful attention. He would be safe in the cryopod until she could return. If nothing else, his body wouldn’t die.

She pressed a gentle kiss to the front of his pod, where he hung looking dead already. “Hang on,” she whispered, and then ran to help Coran.

To evacuate… to leave the ship that had been her home for nearly two years… Her garden that her friends had gathered for her, grown with her… it was heartbreaking. She helped Krolia load Shiro’s cryopod onto the Black Lion, then dashed to her room to collect what she could bring in ten minutes or less.

Her medical kit, her clothes, Shiro’s hair, her card collection, her main laptop, the photo album she’d been making, she swept it all into the duffel-bag she’d brought with her when she arrived. What else? “Bring your blankets and pillows,” she said into the radio, adding to the radio chatter of things not to forget. They couldn’t know when they’d next find proper beds, did they? Even if the temperature inside the Lions was steady, it would be nice to be comfortable, too. And they had new people with them, too. They’d have to share.

She couldn’t bring her garden. But she could take pictures. With shaking hands, she aimed her camera phone around the room. All that green, those living colours… it was about to die a fiery death. But better her garden than the universe. And she wouldn’t abandon all of it. She grabbed a mid-sized planter and scooped several plants from the soil – Keith’s cactus, Hunk’s chives, Lance’s rose, Pidge’s ivy, Allura’s lily, Coran’s spiderleaf, and of course, Shiro’s pink trumpet flower. It would be difficult to care for them while they traveled, and she couldn’t give them good light, and they would use precious water. But she wanted to bring a little bit of each of them with her, to start her next garden with, if she could. She patted them down securely and hoisted the planter into her arms.

She swung by the medical bay on her way back to the Black Lion’s hangar, picked up a few things she’d left in there, then dashed the rest of the way with her duffel bouncing on her back, cushioned by the pillows crammed inside, arms wrapped protectively around the heavy planter. She was pushing it close, she knew, but so were the others, from the sounds she was hearing over the radio.

She curled in the back of the Black Lion’s cockpit next to the cryopod. It felt like a coffin beside her. _No_ , she told herself. Or if it were, then a glass coffin, like the one in the story Hunk had told her of the sleeping princess. The man inside wasn’t dead yet. Krolia sat across from her, staring forward through the viewscreens, not intruding on her space or her thoughts. The wolf sat across from her too, looking at her curiously, then at Krolia, then back at her. Krolia kept a hand on his back.

Keith hopped past everything stuffed in the back with that strange feline-like grace that he’d always had, but had even more now, settling into the pilot’s seat and immediately blasting off at full speed. The Castle of Lions receded behind them, she knew, and it would be for the last time.

Suddenly, she felt tears come to her eyes. She hated the finality of death. It was something impossible to deal with; first it wasn’t there, and then it was, and afterwards everything was different. It was foolish now, she felt. She still had Teler, and the humans still had Earth. Giving up the Castle meant saving Teler. She loved the Castle, but not even so much to cry for it, or so she had thought. The one she really felt for was Coran, who loved the Castle like it was his child, who had no Altea behind it, who rarely talked deeply about such feelings but who felt deeply all the same. So she let herself cry silently for him as she felt the colossal explosion from the teladuv rock the Black Lion.

Beside her, Shiro’s heart beat faintly on.

A few hours later, they landed on a planet – any planet, the first planet with breathable atmosphere – and got out to regroup face to face. Keith, without any words, brought Shiro’s cryopod. In the centre of the ring of Lions, he opened it, and with Allura’s help, lifted the body out and placed it on the ground between them, and remained kneeling beside it. Elslince knelt on Shiro’s other side with Allura, reaching out to touch his chest that hardly rose and fell under the armour. There was not much for her to monitor. She just watched to touch him, to reassure herself that he was still there.

“This body is barely living,” Keith said to them all, looking down at Shiro’s face, “but Shiro’s spirit is alive. It’s inside the Black Lion. I’ve heard him talking to me.”

She felt like her own heart stopped. What did that mean? How did he get there? Did Keith mean that Shiro might be…

“He… he tried to tell me, but I-I didn’t realize,” Lance said, falling to his knees between Allura and Elslince. “I’m so sorry, Shiro. I… I-I didn’t know. I-I could’ve…” Tears squeezed from his eyes and his shoulders hunched up for a sob.

Allura placed a gentle hand on his shoulder then, stilling the sobs, and stood. As they watched, she walked over to the Black Lion, where its head still lay on the ground from their disembarking, and placed both her hands on its chin.

And her hands began to glow. The Black Lion’s eyes flashed in response, and all across its incredibly massive body, lines of lavender quintessence began to gleam, flowing towards her slowly but with purpose.

And now Allura was glowing with quintessence, and when she opened her eyes, they were shining blue and otherworldly. She walked carefully towards them, and knelt at Shiro’s head, placing her hands on his temples. And Shiro began to glow. Lavender and violet sparkles drifted from his body and floated away as if on an unfelt breeze.

When the glow faded from both Allura and Shiro, his hair was entirely white.

His eyes snapped open, and when a residual quintessence glow faded from them, there they were, those beautiful grey eyes, warm in the sunset. He shot up to sitting, inhaling sharply – oxygen deprived, she guessed, from breathing so shallowly for so long – and then coughing, choking on his own breath. Tears started into her eyes and she began to reach for him, to steady him, but he groaned and slumped away, against Keith’s shoulder.

The lions flung back their heads and roared triumphantly, deafeningly, shaking the air around them. Shiro was back, the true Shiro, that was all it could mean. She- she was broken, tears were streaming down her face, she could do nothing but _feel_ while Keith held her love.

Shiro blinked his eyes open wearily and focused vaguely on Keith. “You found me,” he whispered.

“We’re glad you’re back, Shiro,” Keith said.

“Rest,” Allura said gently.

Shiro’s gaze drifted over to Allura and past her to Elslince. “El… Elslince.”

“Shiro,” she whispered. She couldn’t get enough air, gasping desperately to fill her lungs past the tears, but he’d stolen it all with that loving look. She scooted unsteadily a little closer, taking him from Keith, supporting his head with a hand and his broad shoulders with the other arm. He was limp and heavy, but she could carry him. She kissed his forehead, and was about to lean his head against her shoulder when he reached up with his left arm – his only arm – and pulled her face in gently for a proper kiss.

She shuddered like a leaf in the wind at his touch, trying to maintain her self-control, not to overwhelm him with her feelings right now. She wanted – she wanted so much, and yet everything she had was already too much. His lips were soft and uncertain against hers, and she sank a little deeper into the kiss. His body was weary and worn, his spirit – how did one diagnose the psychiatry of a spirit trapped in a sentient robot lion? Yet she wanted to let go of everything and lean on him, to pour out her feelings to him, to shelter in his embrace once again. He wasn’t fragile, her rock, their rock, not now that she knew he was fully himself. He could take it. But later. When he was fully rested and recovered. She would protect him with all her strength until then.

All in all, he and Keith had some explaining to do.

They parted, and he smiled weakly into her eyes. His hand was wound in her hair, and her hair was twined about his arm up to the elbow, making it difficult for him to let go. She hadn’t even noticed Keith had stepped away to discuss the team’s next move. “Takashi,” she whispered, feeling the precious intimacy of his rarely-used given name.

He chuckled once, then closed his eyes and let her lean his white head on her shoulder. “I’m back, El. Not leaving anymore. That I know of.”

“I love you,” she said. She couldn’t ask for a promise. Three times he’d returned to her when she never expected to see him again. Four would be pushing it. “Rest. I’ll protect you.”

He smiled, and rested.


	10. Drifting

Chapter 10: Drifting

Shiro, soul and body reunited, had been placed back in the cryopod – so weak, his heart was struggling, his body adjusting to a semi-new consciousness. Or at least that was what Elslince and Allura told him. Keith paced. The rest of the team had only just left to gather fuel for the Lions, but his place was here, at Shiro’s side. Normally he was good at waiting – pacing was for people who liked to burn energy, like Lance – but _this_ waiting was worse torture than he’d been through his entire life. If only there was something he could _do_ …

“Keith,” said a soft voice from his side, and he almost jumped. Not good, he’d been so caught up in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed Elslince approach. His mom and Allura were still on the other side of the room. “Thank you for finding him, for bringing him back to us. You went through so much for him…” Her eyes lingered on his burn scar.

He blinked, unsure how to respond. “Well… uh…” He really didn’t need thanks.

“Though I know you would have done it anyway,” she said. “You love him too.”

“He’s my brother,” he said a little gruffly, though he got the sense that she wasn’t talking about that. Which meant she was very observant… and he didn’t want to go there, not with her, not with anyone. Shiro didn’t see him that way, had never seen him that way. He dimly remembered Adam, back when he’d been a kid and didn’t even think about such things. And now there was Elslince. But even though he was an adult now and knew his feelings, even if there had never been an Elslince, Shiro would still think of him as a younger brother. And he was content with that. As long as Shiro didn’t _die_ again, anyway. Did she think they were kindred spirits for both loving Shiro or something?

She didn’t hug him, though she looked like she wanted to, instead putting a hand on his shoulder. “He _will_ come back to us,” and now he got the sense she meant specifically him and her. Great, she did think they were kindred spirits. “He’s like you – too stubborn to quit.”

He had to smile. “Yeah. Yeah, he’ll recover. It’s just… the waiting is hard.” It wasn’t even the first time they’d waited on Shiro, either.

“I know.” She turned away, her self-control slipping just a bit, shoulders hunching as she took a deep breath. His wolf whined a little and nudged her hand with his head, and she patted him absentmindedly.

Maybe she was right after all. Her pain felt awfully similar to his pain.

He turned back to the cryopod. “C’mon, Shiro. Hang in there.” If he didn’t get up soon, the doctor would cry, and nobody wanted that.

“Quizack,” Romelle said. She’d come back from their zany planet-side adventure determined to say this new word correctly, it seemed.

“Nope, still wrong,” Pidge said. “Quiznack. Quiz… nack.”

“Quinzak – quiznack,” Romelle said.

“What if she’s only ever said quizack, though?” Elslince asked. “She’s been separated from the Altean language that Coran and Allura know by ten thousand years, you have to allow for regional variants.”

“It’s not that,” Romelle said, blushing. “I actually never used or even really heard swears before. This language is… it’s so dirty! But even Princess Allura says it! And I don’t know why, it makes me feel better to say it too!”

“Sometimes when you’re fighting for the universe, you gotta talk a little tough,” Lance said in his ‘suave’ voice.

“Sometimes when you’re frustrated, it makes you feel better,” Pidge said.

“I try not to use it when patching people up, but…” Elslince chuckled. “One time, Shiro needed seventeen stitches in his leg. I learned a lot of Earth words that day…”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Lance said. Everyone ignored Shiro mumbling “yes, I remember that” to himself.

“Umm…” Now Elslince blushed. “He really liked “k’so”, for one. He made me promise not to repeat the others…”

“I mean, we could just ask him, right?” Hunk said. “Hey, Shiro, what sorts of-”

“No,” Shiro said firmly. “You know plenty, I’m sure.”

Elslince giggled a little. For a moment, he’d sounded like his old self again. He was going to need a lot of time to recover, but this precious little moment of normalcy… it was good.

The night after he explained what had happened to him, why his consciousness had melded to the Black Lion’s to begin with, and dealing with the inevitable outburst of “You were _dead_ -dead!?” from everyone except Keith, Krolia, and Romelle… he couldn’t sleep. And not because there was a green girl sticking to his side like glue every minute of every hour, as if terrified he’d disappear or die on her yet again. Physical proximity seemed to reassure her, and he was okay with giving her that – it reassured him that he was truly back in the land of the living, too.

Even though he wondered if he ought to be. No one came back from the dead… that was one thing that had gotten Zarkon into this whole galactic war mess in the first place, supposedly.

Even if he kind of needed time to himself right now. The team was handling themselves just fine without his input – Keith had truly become the leader he’d always known he was – and he was inexplicably depressed and not in the mood for interacting. Elslince said part of it was an imbalance of brain chemicals, which he could understand, but he found he just couldn’t reach out to them like he once could. At least she gave him his mental space. She knew he’d talk when he was ready. He didn’t know why she believed in him so- no, that was the brain chemicals talking. Maybe.

Even though he wondered how upset she was. She’d told him once that he couldn’t give up _everything_ if he didn’t want her to cry anymore – and he’d done it. Not necessarily intentionally, but even if given a choice… he’d probably have still done it. It had been the universe or her heart… and he’d chosen the universe. He’d done the same thing to her he’d done to Adam. He’d even come to terms with dying while existing in the serene world that was the Black Lion’s consciousness. But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel kind of guilty now that she was having to sort through it all too. She tried to hide how much she was hurting, but he saw the freshly reopened wounds in her eyes.

One thing he certainly hated was missing his arm. Yes, he was glad the evil Galra thing was gone. Proud of Keith for destroying it. But now the simplest things were unreasonably difficult. His disease had given him more dignity… even though he hadn’t gotten to the debilitating stage yet before Haggar took it from him along with his arm. And he oughtn’t to complain, just it was really a pain when Elslince had to open the pudding packets for him, had to hold things for him, practically do everything except wipe his ass like an infant. He’d always been capable of doing almost everything for himself and losing that independence was unbearably frustrating, made him feel like a giant useless piece of meat. Patience yielded focus, though, and he was going to need focus if he was going to make it through this long journey with his sanity intact. He couldn’t get angry at El. What was he going to do, not eat his pudding? He wanted the pudding.

The bathroom door opened and Elslince tip-toed out, back to his side – but as soon as she lay down next to him, a shaggy form loomed out of the darkness and draped itself over her stomach. She grunted with the weight. “Wolfy, get _off_.”

“He really likes you, huh?” Shiro said, happy for the distraction from his dark thoughts.

“He really likes _making me a pillow_ … I said get off!” The wolf ignored her, looking at Shiro contentedly.

“C’mon,” Shiro said mildly to the wolf. “What if I want to make her a pillow, too?” He had to admit how impressed he was with Keith raising a space-wolf, particularly one that seemed intelligent as anyone else they’d met, even if it didn’t talk.

She snorted as the wolf considered that, then got up and stalked back over to where Keith was sleeping. Probably. Free from animals as big as she was, she rolled closer to him, not touching him except with her hair, which wound about his arm. He couldn’t feel it through the armour. “Still can’t sleep?”

He sighed. “Not yet. I’m trying. You all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, getting comfortable. She was kind of adorable curled up like that. “Want to talk or no?”

He didn’t even know if he wanted to talk about it. Certainly didn’t want to wake up Keith and Krolia. He sighed again. “I mean, I’m not thrilled about being brought back in the body of my own evil clone… who tried to kill you all…”

“Not evil,” Elslince said. “Neither you, nor anything from you could be evil. Mind-controlled.”

“Because that makes it all okay,” he said sarcastically. “Blowing up the Castle, punching you all in the face…”

Blue eyes looked up at him and made him feel bad. “He tried to be Shiro for us. He was Shiro for us-”

“Until he wasn’t.”

“Which wasn’t his fault. Unless you want to blame him for existing.”

He wanted to. Wanted to say they’d have been better off with no Shiro than a time-bomb of one.

“He gave us what we needed when we needed it,” she said softly. “Gave me what I needed. The strength to continue. The leadership to fight. Just like you would have. The fact that Haggar created him, and then stole him from us… not his fault. And when she strikes, it’s always devastating, no matter what. Kuron wasn’t evil. She is.”

“I’m still mad at him,” he grumbled, putting his arm around her. “I have very high standards for myself, clones not exempt.”

He was trying to joke a little bit, to lift the tension from his outward feelings, even if his inward feelings were still all messed up. It seemed to work, as she draped an arm over his chest. “Hey, Shiro.”

“Mm?”

“Didn’t you once tell me that ‘shiro’ means white?”

“Yeah, Shirogane means white steel – or maybe silver. And Kogane means gold. You’re saying my hair finally fits.”

He felt her smile. Some of her hair drifted up to touch his. “Yes. And it’s beautiful.”

“I guess.” It hadn’t really mattered one way or another, he wasn’t much for worrying about his looks. “You’ve always been beautiful.”

“Go to sleep, silver boy.” A slight, involuntary squeeze that told him she was still internally freaking out about the dying thing and didn’t want to let go of him, probably ever again.

He squeezed her shoulders back. “You too, green girl.”


	11. Captain Shirogane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I watched this part of the show I was freaking out EVERYWHERE. Oh my god Shiro you stunning crazy human disaster. So proud of Space-Husband. Even if he decided to have a fist-fight on the exterior of a spaceship free-falling through atmospheric re-entry without a helmet. @_@

Chapter 11: Captain Shirogane

After the introductions, Shiro took Iverson aside. “Is… Is Adam still mad at me? Is that why he’s not here?” He hadn’t expected Earth to arrive so soon, but the team had said something about a ‘magical teleporting nebula’ that had shortened their journey by about seventeen months. He had thought to have more time to consider what to say to his ex-fiancé. About their break-up. About what had happened to him. About Elslince.

Iverson hesitated, his gaze softening in compassion, and Shiro felt something heavy sink into his gut. “I’m sorry, Shiro. He died in the first attack.”

“No…” Of all the possibilities he’d considered… that hadn’t been one. Even after they’d heard Commander Holt’s recording. Oh god… Adam…

Iverson made a ‘come with me’ gesture. “There’s a memorial to everyone we lost that day. I’ll take you.”

The wall was large – much too large. And still he somehow found Adam within ten seconds of looking at it. The little picture was almost too much to bear: that handsome face, with the neat hair, the intellectual glasses, the professionally blank gaze of a soldier… He touched the plaque with his hand, fingers brushing over the tiny portrait. All that he was, all that he’d been… reduced to a small piece of bronze on a wall. He didn’t have to ask Iverson how he’d died. Adam had been a great fighter pilot. But a relatively slow, unshielded, poorly armed Earth fighter against a Galra beam weapon… he wouldn’t have stood a chance. There probably hadn’t even been a body to recover.

“Adam…” he whispered, voice quavering. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t fair. He’d been the one to leave, he’d given everything of himself to protect Earth and the universe, and Adam was gone anyway. But life wasn’t fair. War wasn’t fair. He had to swallow it and carry on. He knew the conflict ahead was going to demand everything he had yet again. Mentally, he was finally ready. Emotionally, now…

Elslince had followed him to the memorial, of course, lingering in the shadows at the edge of the hall respectfully. Giving him space to deal with this initial impact of grief in privacy.

He should tell her. He’d never mentioned Adam to her, hadn’t wanted to burden her with that particular baggage, hadn’t wanted to tell her so flat-out what a terrible long-term commitment he was. Breaking up with Adam had hurt too much. He’d tried not to even compare them in his mind – Adam was Adam, and Elslince was Elslince, and he loved them as much but differently.

And he wanted a reminder that he wasn’t alone, when one more piece of his past – his home – had been ripped from him. He turned to her and reached out, and she came running to him, wrapping her arms and hair about him. He buried his face in that hair and let out a long, half-controlled shuddering breath. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“Who was he?” she asked softly.

He hesitated. “My ex-fiancé. I… I’m sorry I never told you about him before.”

“Would you tell me about him now?”

He took another deep breath. He’d never felt this close to tears in… forever. “Met him in middle school. You remember I said I used to have anger issues? That I used to be kind of like Keith?” He felt her nod. “Adam was what changed that for me. He was so serious, even back then. I didn’t like him at first – thought he was some kind of goody-two-shoes. It was the glasses, I guess. And then… we became friends. Him, and Matt Holt, and me – we were inseparable. He inspired me, supported me, even through my… issues.” Not time to bring up his disease. “He saw who I could be, him and Iverson, and he turned a blind eye when Matt and I were off being little shits. He pretended he disapproved, but he even joined us from time to time. No one could prove anything… we were all the top of our class, perfect record, everything. He really had a wicked sense of humour, scathing wit, and he didn’t hesitate to call bullshit when he saw it.”

It felt so wrong, using past tense about Adam. Even if he hadn’t seen him in two or three years. More, from Adam’s point of view. And now he’d been dead two years, while Shiro had been time travelling. He steeled himself and continued, words falling out awkwardly, yet unwilling to stop. “I asked him out when we graduated.” He had to smile, shakily, remembering how stunned Adam had been… remembering the beautiful smile he’d made when he’d said ‘yes’. “And he asked me to marry him three years later.”

“He sounds lovely,” Elslince murmured into his shoulder. “But…?”

“But I didn’t stop pushing myself, trying to do everything I could before… before I couldn’t, and at some point that bled over into pushing him _away_. It came to a head when I went on the Kerberos mission. He didn’t want me to go. I would have been years away from him, and by the time I came back… He wanted me to stay here, with him. And… as you know, I didn’t. If I hadn’t…”

He felt Elslince shift with unease in his embrace. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here – my planet probably wouldn’t be here. Voltron wouldn’t be here. And Zarkon would be here. Earth would be just one more subjugated planet, no matter how great warriors humans are.”

“Yeah… I know. But I… I thought I’d have a chance to at least apologize. To make things up to him. I don’t know how angry he would be at me, what he would feel about you – although once you got to know each other, I think you’d get along really well. But… I thought at least he’d be here to _be_ angry at me.” There was no closure. There was nothing, just a planet-sized weight of grief and guilt and regret.

“I… I wish you’d told me of him before,” Elslince said. “I didn’t even know you were in love… although I guessed, because of your kind heart and handsome face, you must have had _someone_ , right? I wouldn’t have wished him to be angry at you because of me…”

He shook his head. “Maybe he didn’t mean for it to be a permanent break-up… but it felt like it to me. And when I met you, I fell for you… because you’re amazing too. He wouldn’t have been angry at you. It’s all on me. I-I honestly don’t know why you’re still with me…”

“Stop being so self-effacing,” she said, and that was when he noticed she was crying into his uniform. “You think too little of yourself when it comes to other people. Let us love you, dammit.”

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I’ve never actually been good with relationships.” His gaze fell back on Adam’s portrait. “I wonder if Sam got the chance to tell him I was alive.” Or if he’d gone to his death thinking Shiro was still dead. No, he must have guessed that if Sam could make it, so did Shiro.

“I bet he did,” Elslince said, sniffling her tears away. “And I know he was proud of you, although it sounds like he would have been exasperated too.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I can hear him now… ‘Takashi, you giant dork, getting kidnapped by aliens wasn’t enough? You had to fly a giant robot lion across the freaking universe, die, get cloned, put into a metaphysical state, and almost doom us all before you even thought about coming back to Earth?’” He shook his head. “Thank you for being here. I… It helps. It’s so sudden for me…”

“Whatever you need,” she said. “I’m here.”

He squeezed. “More than anything else, I wish you’d been able to meet him. Or many of the people here. I knew so many of them…”

“It’s because of them that Earth still has a chance,” Iverson said gently from behind them. “It’s time for our debriefing.”

He didn’t know when he’d started giving orders. Probably had slipped into it shortly after returning to the Garrison – at first, he’d just meant to add his weight to Sam and Iverson against Sanda. Sam had still been the one giving most of the actual commands… until now. But it had been habit, from leading Voltron and the Coalition of Free Planets, from _having_ to take command, from having to convince frightened or argumentative or just plain stubborn allies to take necessary action. He’d been glad to be back in a proper military structure that he _knew_ , so much he hadn’t realized he’d outgrown his old rank. And Sam and Iverson had let him, trusting him.

The Atlas had been loaded with all base personnel, her engines charging, the base above them under heavy attack. He’d automatically stood at the top of the bridge, instinct telling him he needed to know what was going on in case they needed his input. He’d known what to do, what to say – he’d virtually been trained for this moment.

Even so, he hadn’t realized it until Coran saluted him, confidently saying “Yes, Captain!”

He paused in surprise, casting his gaze around the rest of the bridge. All eyes were fixed on him, expectantly, trustingly. “The bridge is yours, Shiro,” Sam said.

“We could use an engineer,” he answered gratefully.

Sam saluted him, beaming with pride. “Yes, sir.”

Iverson on weapons. Veronica McClain on shields and subsystems. Sam in engineering. Coran at the helm. And down in medbay, accessible through the comm at his elbow, Elslince was safe, taking care of the civilians packed on board. The datascreens glimmered vibrantly before him. His new prosthetic arm hummed silently with Altean power, strong and comforting, Allura’s gift to him.

For the first time in a long time, everything just… _clicked_. He was ready to fight. And against Sendak, of all enemies…

It wouldn’t be easy. But Sendak wouldn’t know what hit him. They were going to save Voltron, save his young friends, and take him down permanently.

“Captain, the Galra fleet is directly over the launch pad.”

“MFE Squadron, we need you to clear a path. The Atlas is powered and ready for launch!”

It was ludicrous to launch a single human body powered only by jetpack into the sort of space armada battle normally only seen in blockbuster sci-fi movies. It was insane to try to hack an alien crystal with a robot arm. That part had hurt.

And it was definitely suicidal to have a fistfight on the upper hull of an alien warship, sans space-helmet, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, plummeting in freefall rapidly towards the surface. It was a good thing the ship had enough ambient external atmosphere his lungs didn’t seize up.

He did it anyway. This might have topped all the other crazy things he’d done in his career, but Sendak needed to be Put Down and Stay Down. No more destroying Earth. No more destroying his friends. No more.

Until the massive ship crashed onto its side, and his last handhold was jarred loose, and he fell…

He was only out for a few minutes, but by the time he’d gotten his eyes open again, Sendak was up – barely. Shiro couldn’t move, could barely see straight, could barely feel his prosthetic arm let alone move it to block whatever attack was surely coming.

Something small, a Garrison shuttle maybe, plummeted through the atmosphere and skidded with a screech of metal to a stop not far away. He heard a door open and pounding footsteps, and a slim figure in medical garb appeared crouching over him protectively, green hair swirling though the wind had died down. “You won’t touch him,” Elslince said, and his blurry vision showed him she held a pistol pointed steadily at Sendak. A pistol!? Elslince had touched a gun? For him? Where had she gotten it?

Sendak didn’t even blink. “Victory… or death!” He raised his arm, the beam charging. Elslince flinched, hesitating.

The Black Lion appeared behind Sendak with a massive roar – and from its defiant jaws erupted a lean, howling creature, striking with his sword.

Sendak fell to the sand and lay still.

Elslince turned to him, dropping the gun, Keith ran to him, and together they pulled him to a sitting position. He gasped in pain, unable to focus clearly on either of them, but shocked that he hadn’t broken anything. For once he’d had the devil’s own luck. “Thank you.”

A shadow fell over them, and they looked up to see the other four Lions coming in. The other Paladins were cheering, he could hear them over Keith’s comm. Elslince was trying to get him to tell her how many fingers she was holding up, and he probably needed to answer, because the answer wasn’t as consolidated as he’d like, but the feeling of relief suffusing the entire planet was infectious. Keith pulled him to his feet, supporting him, Elslince boosting his other side-

Something was entering Earth’s atmosphere, and it wasn’t the burning remnant of a Galra ship. It was aimed at them, and friendly or not, it wasn’t slowing down.

“Paladins, brace for impact!” barked Keith. “Hunk, help us with Shiro!” Hunk’s yellow armour dashed up, and he felt strong hands pull him into a fireman’s carry. Even so, the shockwave of the object’s impact picked them all up, flinging them chaotically through the air. With a growl, the Yellow Lion caught them, flinging them safely into its cargo hold.

He was still dazed, trying to reorient himself, but Keith was off back to the Black Lion, Hunk was rushing to his own cockpit, the Yellow Lion was moving, commands were being given and received. Elslince crouched beside him, bracing him, and he clung weakly to her. He dimly registered when the Lion’s mouth opened again, and Hunk and El half-dragged him to what he assumed was the Atlas and a medical crew. He stumbled obediently through corridors until they dropped him into a hospital bed and El and the medic began checking him over. He took deep breaths at her instruction, trying to regain his focus, his centre.

The Atlas shook violently under what felt like a direct hit. And again. He shook his head. His vision was clearing, his limbs steadying. Whatever they’d done to him, it was enough he could get back up. He pushed the medic aside and hauled himself out of bed. “I need to get back.”

“But Commander,” began the medic.

Elslince stopped the medic with a gesture, helping Shiro up, pushing him to stand at his full height. Her smile was a little exasperated… mostly proud. So proud she was almost bursting, now that he was looking full at her. “Go, then. Do what only you can do.”

He nodded and hurried off, jogging at first, then flat out sprinting as he recovered his legs. Adrenaline was part of what was keeping him going, he knew, and he was going to pay for it later. But he was up, he was ready to fight again, and he’d make sure there was a later.

Elslince had only personally seen and experienced some of the weirder stuff that the rest of Team Voltron had in their journey through the universe. But she thought that the medbay suddenly gaining a mind of its own and completely changing shape – and from Shiro’s order “Hold tight”, the rest of the ship too – had to rank pretty highly on the ‘weird things’ list, whether or not she’d actively been on Oriande, or the astral plane, or been shrunk to the size of a space-mouse.

The wolf whined and shivered under her desk next to her plants, and she reached down to pat him comfortingly. She had no idea what was going on. But she knew Shiro and Voltron would fix it.

In the meantime, there were already coming in reports of twisted ankles and cracked wrists from the brief gravity realignment. She’d do her part to the full.


	12. Happily For Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro meeting his parents is based on that [super adorable tumblr post](https://jaromira.tumblr.com/post/175961969467/hajnarus-i-know-i-know-he-is-the-adult-in), obviously.

Part 12: Happily For Now

The battle with the strange mecha nearly destroyed everyone again, but even when it was done, his work was not over. The Lions had been scattered across the western side of North America, their paladins unresponsive. The Atlas had turned back into a ship, at least. He needed to send out retrieval teams, get in contact with the rest of the world, get civilians liberated from their work camps, get civilians shelter and food and water…

Even delegating the things that needed to be delegated, it was past midnight local time before Sam directed him to the captain’s cabin to sleep. The Lions had been found, and the paladins, though barely conscious, had piloted them to a safe location and been extracted to what was left of the Garrison hospital, which was surprisingly intact after Sendak’s assault. He was so proud of them, of all they’d done, the incredible things they’d accomplished together. Shiro stepped blearily through the sliding door into his new cabin, stripping off his space suit, his undergarment beneath, all disgustingly soaked through with sweat. He left them puddled on the floor; normally he was neat as a pin, but tonight he was just too tired. He stepped into the shower, moaning a little under the soothing hot water and the influence of the massive headache that had snuck up on him in the last few hours. He’d probably been more badly injured than he knew. His back was covered in bruises, he’d been electrocuted violently by the Galra crystal, and he wondered if he might have microfractures in his ribs and good arm, maybe even his skull, even if nothing had snapped outright. He probably ought to rest in the days ahead.

As the new captain of the Atlas, he didn’t have that luxury. He’d give orders out of medbay if he had to, but he’d prefer to be on his feet and in the thick of things. He needed to see things personally to be comfortable with his decisions.

He almost fell asleep in the shower, but dragged himself out and flopped on the bed. He was asleep almost instantly.

When he woke some time later, there was a lump on the other side of the bed that hadn’t been there before. It was as still as the dead, its hair not even moving as it lay sprawled on its face. When had she come in? He forebore to poke her, though he was tempted. What time was it? He checked his Altean pocket tablet, automatically converting and calculating… It was Too Early o’Clock. But his alarm was going to go off in ten minutes…

He may as well get up, and did, setting his alarm to mute. Oh god, his body ached all over, and he stretched as far as he could, fighting the pain. Thank goodness his prosthetic didn’t hurt, at least. And his headache was better; he’d grab some painkillers with breakfast and power through it. El had picked up his dirty clothes and put them neatly to one side, though she hadn’t found the laundry chute. And her clothes too. Her clothes? He glanced back at the figure in the bed. She was still in her underthings, but the temptation to touch her was stronger than ever. He knew how smooth her skin was… _Not the time, Takashi._

There weren’t a whole lot of uniforms tailored to his size and prosthetic shoulder, so he was grateful to find a clean second set laid out on the desk. She’d found another cadet uniform for herself, too. She looked awful in Garrison orange, and actually so did Allura, come to think of it, but no one had accused an Earth military of being stylish in centuries. He’d just have to deal with it.

An alarm went off, and he jumped before he realized it was hers. She must have synced it to his. She stirred and grunted, hair coiling spasmodically. “Sen’… R’melle… to ‘llura…” She was still in work mode.

He bent over her as she struggled to roll over onto her back. “How are you?”

“Nngh,” was the eloquent response. “How are you? How are you up so early?”

“I’m fine,” he said. Even if it wasn’t completely true, it was necessary for it to be true. Actually, what he really needed was breakfast. He’d barely eaten the day before, mostly coffee and protein bars, and now he was aware that he was starving in addition to everything else. Real food for breakfast would make the day much more bearable. He wondered if he’d find Sam and Iverson in the mess. “I just woke up. When did you get in?”

“Dunno. A couple vargas ago. Commander Holt gave me fresh clothes for you- oh, you found them.”

“Mmhmm. I’m grateful.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, and some green hair and one hand reached out to him fondly. “Take care today.”

“You too.” As he pulled away, she sat up. “If at any point you don’t feel well, at all, you better report to medbay immediately, Captain Shirogane. We need you in one piece.”

Despite her tiredness, there was some fire there. He saluted her with a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

That day was hard work again, and the day after too – it wasn’t until that second day that he actually managed to sign off at a reasonable hour. Still too late to eat dinner sitting in the mess with the crew, but early enough that he wasn’t tempted to just fall into bed and pass out, tired but not exhausted. They’d already made contact with the Resistance, specifically with Matt, there was a memorial to set up for everyone who’d fought and died for Earth, clean-up work was underway, communications were finally re-established across the globe, and Sam was putting together a team to retrieve the pieces of the strange mecha that had attacked them in order to see what they could find out.

And for at least an hour, he could put that all out of his head with a long shower, dinner, maybe some light reading, and sleep.

He was in the shower, resting his forehead against the wall, letting the water stream down his still-bruised back, when he heard the door open and close. “Hello,” said Elslince’s voice.

“Hi,” he answered, not turning around to look through the frosted plastic shower door.

“Need anything?” She’d been working so hard, with the Garrison, with the civilians, and she still had the energy for him?

He snorted gently. “You?”

There was a pause, then he heard the shower door open. He whirled, startled, not having expected her to interpret in… that… way…

She flinched, starry blue eyes wide, looking ready to close the door again and run away, hair pulling away into tight ripples, but god she was beautiful. For a moment, they both stared, breathless, and then he smiled and held out a hand to her, inviting her in. She took his hand and let herself be drawn into a tight embrace as the water poured down over them both. “Hey, El.”

“Yes, Shiro?”

“Marry me.” No, he wasn’t done sorting through his baggage with Adam. Yes, he wanted her by his side if at all possible. Adam would have understood. Probably. Eventually. He didn’t see the point of delaying, not when they had this window of recovery.

He felt her flinch again in surprise, and her arms tightened on his back, pressing against the bruises a little painfully. “Yes. I will.”

“Not when the war’s done, soon.”

“Yes. Goodness knows how long the war will be.” She looked up at him. “I want to be with you, Takashi, for as long as we have. Trees willing, we’ll have a long time…”

She was so alive in his arms, so warm and soft and loving, her mouth sweet on his as he bent his head to kiss her, as he felt her arms move up to wrap around his neck and her hair swirled over his head, threading around his short hair in an intimate way that he dimly remembered – from this body with another mind, when his hair had been long. And now he understood, he finally understood what she’d meant then, why she wanted to know what it felt like.

He gave himself to her, all he had not yet given her, and she gave herself to him the same, until she screamed his name in a way that made his heart ache. Adam would have to forgive him. He was hers now, and only hers.

They lay together in bed, and he watched her, her breathing, her gently shifting hair, the way her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked. She was different from a human woman, but he’d never made love to a human woman so it didn’t matter. He was… at peace, in a way he hadn’t been for years. Since before everything had happened. Maybe since ever. And it was thanks to her. His green angel. She destroyed him and completed him, protected him and supported him…

Speaking of protection… “Hey, so when you came to save me from Sendak…”

She squinted up at him, snuggling with his prosthetic. She certainly liked it a lot more than his previous one. Actually, so did he. “What about it?” She giggled a little as his artificial fingers flicked at her chin.

“How’d you know…? And where’d you get the gun?”

“It’s you.” Her smile was fondly exasperated. “I figured you’d be doing the absolute most reckless thing possible, and when I heard Keith say you were fighting Sendak on the _exterior hull_ I knew I was right. So I ran to the Atlas’s hangar and grabbed a shuttle before anyone could stop me. And the one person who tried… gave me his gun when I told him what I was doing.” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m still conflicted. I would have shot Sendak without remorse, but I swore an oath… but maybe principles aren’t supposed to be black and white… but if they aren’t, what good are they?”

He stroked her back. “It’s not like you were going to torture him first. You were just doing what needed to be done to save my life. And… knowing what it means to you… I appreciate it.” He appreciated strong principles, but he wasn’t sure what the philosophy was in hard line pacifism. He drew his lines elsewhere. In any case, he forgave her this.

“Well, it’s a good thing Keith was there.”

“You say that like he wouldn’t be there. Just like you. Always catching me when I fall.”

She snuggled closer and his arm tightened around her. “Always, silver boy.”

He wasn’t sure how he made it through the memorial without choking up, but he gave his speech with all the dignity he could muster, the message that Earth and her newly arrived allies needed to hear – they’d weathered a hard battle, they’d lost people, sacrifices had been made, but though the war wasn’t over, Voltron had returned and was the vanguard of their hope.

Even if that last battle against the strange mecha had called that into question, at least for him.

But seeing everyone gathered there, and knowing who else had arrived in the last week, gave him strength. Krolia and Kolivan had returned, and were spending time with Keith; Matt had returned – now older than Shiro, and with a girlfriend – and was with his family. Shay’s Balmerra had relocated to a Near-Earth orbit, which would certainly make Sam and his science team happy, and while her family attended the memorial, Shay had gone to visit Hunk. And the Teleran Elder Hamza had arrived seeking his great-granddaughter, looking even more frail than the last time Shiro had seen him, though he hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him in person yet.

None of this was to compare with when he got off the stage, and heard Veronica calling him urgently. “Captain, someone to see you, sir!”

“On my way,” he said, and strode briskly over to where she was – and stopped short. “…Mom? Dad? Grandpa?”

“Takashi,” said his mom, reaching up to him with tears in her eyes and the biggest smile on her face.

“M-Mom! Dad!” He dropped to his knees before her – she was a tiny little woman – and hugged her tightly, and felt them all embrace him back. “I-I’m sorry I was gone so long, I’m sorry I didn’t call when I got back, I’m sorry…” Everything he’d been stoically holding back for so long came flooding out, and he was crying, crying harder than he’d cried in years, folded in the warmth of family for the first time since before Kerberos. He hadn’t lost them.

“It’s all right, Takashi, it’s all right,” his dad said. “We’re so proud of you. We’re just glad that you’re back.”

“What happened to your hair, boy?” asked his grandfather. “You look older than me now!”

“And the arm,” his dad said. “Is that Commander Holt’s engineering?”

He looked up, smiling through his tears. “It’s a long story. I’m so glad you’re all right. I-I heard about Adam right after I got back, but no one knew about civilians in Japan…”

“We’re sorry about Adam, Takashi,” said his mom. “He was so brave.”

“Yes, he was.” He pulled back, wiping his eyes on the sleeve. “I miss him. I… wasn’t expecting him not to be here when I came back.” He took a deep breath, recomposing himself. “Anyway, I hope you’ll stay to meet the team. Especially Elslince.”

“Would you like me to find her?” Veronica volunteered respectfully.

“If she’s not with her great-grandfather already, that would be great, thank you.”

His family had brightened up. “Elslince?” his grandfather said, having a little difficulty with the very un-Japanese name. “A girl?”

“You found someone while you were away?” his mother asked, eyes shining. “I was so worried, after you broke up with Adam…”

He wondered if he should prepare them at all to meet an alien. It was fine. They’d understand when they met her. “Yes, and she’s amazing. I’m going to marry her as soon as we can find a time.”

“Shiro!” said a reproachful voice from behind him. “I haven’t told my great-grandfather yet!”

He heard a wizened laugh as he turned, seeing Elslince supporting her great-grandfather as he hobbled on his stick. The Elder’s entourage followed a distance behind. “I’m hardly surprised, dear Elslince. I’m happy for both of you. Take care of her, will you?”

Shiro knelt before the Elder. “I will. Thank you, Elder.” He stood and took Elslince’s hand, leading her closer to his family. “El, this is my family. Mom, Dad, Grandpa, this is Elslince of Teler.”

They were looking a little bit startled, with the green, and the waving hair, but the Garrison orange uniform had to be reassuring, and the way he looked at her… and the way she looked at him… They’d seen it before, with Adam. But they’d supported him then. He trusted they’d support him now.

His mother smiled and bowed formally to Elslince. “It’s lovely to meet you, Elslince of Teler. Thank you for being there for my son.”

“He’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met,” Elslince said, mimicking the bow. “I’m proud and honoured to be with him.”

After that, he knew they’d accept her whole-heartedly, just as Elder Hamza had accepted him.

“So when is the wedding?” his father asked, beaming at them both.

“Um. We don’t know yet. Soon.”

“Then there’s no time to waste,” his mother said. “Takashi, I know you’re busy with Garrison things, defending us against the hostile sort of aliens, but you will make time this week so we can plan something appropriate.”

“We don’t need anything big, Mom…”

His mother shushed him with pursed lips. “First, there’s the cultural differences – what’s she expecting, even if it’s ‘nothing big’? Second, there’s the food.”

“Thirdly, if you don’t invite at least Team Voltron, they’ll crash it anyway, probably in the Lions,” Elslince put in.

“And the wedding of the Coalition Commander would be a joyful occasion for everyone,” Elder Hamza put in with twinkling eyes. He was the-? Oh, yes, of course, the Coalition would look up to him again as they had… what had been three years ago for them. “Though that’s none of my business, of course.”

He took a deep breath. “We’ll discuss it. I’ll make time, Mom. Thank… thank you so much for being here.” He was going to start crying again in a minute.

Earth was transformed in mere months. Sure, the major cities were still in ruins, and there were a great many people salty about the destruction of several major landmarks that had survived WWIII, and the devastation and exploitation of a number of protected nature zones that had carefully been re-established since said war, but on the ground, life was putting itself back together. Dismantling and reclaiming resources from the Galra ships and structures certainly helped, trading with their Resistance allies helped, and many aliens came and stayed to help rebuild, because they, too, knew what it was like to have your planet ravaged by the Galra. It was amazing to walk into a city street and see so much colour, see humans getting along with species that five years ago they never dreamed existed. Communications were back, the economy was putting itself back together, and people were donating whatever they could to the Garrison and the Resistance.

Shiro and the rest of what passed for High Command these days remained a little on edge; just because they’d defeated Sendak didn’t mean that the rest of the Galra wouldn’t come take some shots, and certainly no one knew what Haggar had been up to since… since she took over his clone’s mind. He doubted she was dead, but the silence was ominous.

But it was also welcome, nonetheless. He felt like he’d finally found his place in the universe, and though he still had bad moments with his PTSD, he had a much more extensive and subtle support system now. He felt… rested. At least, more so than usual. And at least he had access to real coffee now. And despite how busy he was, Elslince managed to drag him out for ‘normal’ things – walks in the woods, field trips to try Earth cuisine, Earth music, visits to their friends and families, or just quiet time together. And her plants had survived, and she was already making a new, if smaller garden in the corner of the captain’s cabin. Earth plants fascinated her, unsurprisingly. He didn’t know how she did it; as a medic and doctor able to treat any species in the Coalition, she was maybe even busier than he was.

But the next time Haggar dropped a magical nuke on them… he’d be ready for it.

Like it or not, he was a celebrity now, even more of a hero than he’d been when he was an astronaut. He supposed he’d done crazier, more dangerous things that affected more people than he’d ever done as an astronaut, and he’d already been a bit of a celebrity while Coran was doing his media tour, but _this_ attention, from his homeworld, was uncomfortable. He could just imagine Adam rolling his eyes. And telling him it was only his own fault.

Speaking of the media tour, someone in the Resistance had recorded nearly all of their performances, and they were broadcasting on repeat around the globe now. It was very embarrassing. For all of them. Especially when Keith found out that Allura was ‘playing’ as him. Coran was very apologetic to Keith after that. Hunk was nearly as embarrassed as Shiro, but the younger members of his family had already downloaded it, to his chagrin. Pidge pretended to ignore it, until Matt began teasing her mercilessly about the pseudo-jargon Coran had written for her. Lance was perhaps the only one who thoroughly enjoyed it, but he’d always thoroughly enjoyed performing. And Romelle, of course, found it all fascinating.

Marrying Elslince… snowballed, as he’d hoped it wouldn’t. They called a compromise; a private ceremony in the morning, with just parents and close friends, and a celebration in the evening for everyone else on the planet to join in. The morning ceremony was everything he’d wished for. His family, her family, the Paladins and Coran, Iverson, Sam and Colleen and Matt and Matt’s girlfriend, Romelle, and Elslince’s former mentor, all gathered on the bridge of the Atlas. Right up to the captain’s cap, he was in dress blues – which were actually sparkling white, a colour that he’d been wearing more frequently lately, between the combat space-suit and his new off-duty casual clothes. With even the Garrison officer BDU being grey and not sombre black, it felt as if coming back to Earth had washed all the darkness from him.

There was no procession in Teleran tradition, and the only reason he arrived on the bridge before she did was probably entirely due to his preparations being simpler. But when she did appear, he caught his breath, staring. She looked like a golden rose, arrayed in yellow that clung to her like flower petals, her hair loose and flowing everywhere, scented with some delicate floral perfume, yellow make-up painted across her cheeks and nose. Blood-yellow, she’d told him during planning sessions, for vibrancy, youth, life. The collar of his dress uniform suddenly seemed too tight, and the way her blue eyes were fixed on him, as if there was no one else in the world for her, was overwhelming.

In the Teleran tradition, they traded flower crowns, and in the Earth tradition, they traded rings. Vows before Princess Allura, who had changed into her royal gown for the occasion, a tearful kiss, and then a glass of champagne for everyone old enough to drink alcohol. He didn’t let go of her through it all, keeping his arm around her, wondering if this were a dream. It felt like a dream. Or maybe that was just the lack of oxygen to his brain.

They adjourned to the captain’s cabin and lingered, most of them, talking over drinks and lunch for an hour or two. Embarrassing stories were shared, baby photos, and bad jokes from Lance, Hunk, and Matt. Gifts were presented, small ones, heartfelt ones.

Coran had done the production for the evening, the one with interplanetary broadcasting and lights and fireworks and miking and ridiculous things that Shiro didn’t feel were worth the cost. But Coran had respected the wishes of those who didn’t want to appear on intergalactic television, such as Elder Hamza – too old for such excitement – and his parents – too modest for such a spectacle. Though he’d cajoled Keith into sticking around with “You’re the whatsit, the best man _and_ the Black Paladin, you can’t not be there!” Keith had glowered, but participated stoically.

He was a little less nervous about meeting her in her resplendence, up on the dias beneath the massive sweeping canopy. They’d sort of practiced in the morning, if he chose to look at it that way. Their smiles were a little wry now, acknowledging the silliness of the situation, their movements still a little stiff under the watching crowd and cameras, but when they kissed he heard a huge roar of approval from the assembly. God, he couldn’t wait for it to be over.

But first they were expected to start the party. Lance had spent the last week trying to teach the both of them to dance, enough that they wouldn’t embarrass themselves. Shiro was pretty sure it was a lost cause in the long term, but… at least he could do more than shuffle now. And he had to say the music was pretty good. There was a _lot_ of good food set out, and they had to accept congratulations and compliments from at least a few people. Somehow, he was even happy to see Slav again, despite getting an earful of probability on the number of children they’d have in this reality.

It was past midnight before Pidge snuck up behind them with a devious grin. She was dressed in a dress that made her positively adorable, but she had her comm in her hand. “You guys look like you wanna get out of here.”

“God, yes,” Shiro said, and Elslince nodded. “You going to rescue us?”

Pidge smirked and snapped her fingers, and while Lance jumped on a table and began belting karaoke – followed by a rather drunk Keith – she and Matt threw sheets over Shiro and Elslince, hustling them away from the festivities and into a vehicle that Hunk was driving. “Have funnnn,” Matt leered teasingly, before Pidge whisked him away and Hunk started the car.

Back at base, Elslince went straight on to the Atlas to their cabin, but he lingered at the memorial wall for a minute, captain’s cap in hand. “…Everything’s going to be all right, Adam.” He’d loved him, still loved him despite his absence. But he was his past, and she was his future, and he loved her dearly. “You’d approve of her – you’d like her. I promise.”

They had an 8-day honeymoon with his parents in Japan and it was really nice for everyone, even though his dad had to steal his cellphone to keep him from checking in with the Garrison every two hours. Keith flew them there and picked them up afterwards, though he really shouldn’t have, but he insisted.

It was about a month later, on the bridge of the Atlas, transporting another recovered piece of that strange mecha back to base, when he heard a slightly alarming message from the comm by his elbow. “Captain, do you have a minute?”

“Guess I do,” he answered. “What can I do for you, Doctor?”

“I’d like to speak privately,” she said, and he blinked.

“Coran, you have the bridge,” he said, and went to go see what she wanted. Veronica’s smirk followed him.

Elslince had earned herself a private office in medbay through her own skill and hard work, and she beckoned him in now and closed the door behind him. Her face was serious, uncertain, and it was pretty clear she hadn’t called him down for nookie, not that she ever would. “Are you all right?”

She giggled nervously. “For varying definitions of all right… I’m pregnant.”

He felt his face and mind go blank. “Wh- really?”

“Pretty sure,” she said, and showed him something small and hard. “The seed shell fell out this morning, and look, it’s open.”

“Seed… shell?”

She peered at him. “Telerans start in the womb as seeds, didn’t you know that?”

He sat down heavily on her desk. “Seed shell.”

“If it’s not fertilized, it falls out closed every other phoeb.” She put it down and rested her hands on his shoulders. “Which means this is from two phoebs ago, and it’s going to be another fourteen- Are you okay?”

“Just… dazed.” Suddenly it sank in. Oh god. Neither of them had really been expecting this, though he should have remembered, Keith was half-human after all, species could cross-breed all over the universe, this was all his fault… He jumped off the desk and gave her the very most formal of Japanese bows on hands and knees, the saikeirei that only his grandfather really used anymore. “I’m sorry!”

“Huh?” She squeaked as he stayed in place, and reached down to tug him up. “What are you doing?”

“Wait, you’re not… upset?” He’d been told getting pregnant was somewhat uncomfortable, and in the middle of a war where she wanted to be a relatively active participant, he’d guessed she’d want to be as physically ready for action as possible. Even if there was a lull for now.

“Why would I be upset?” Though there was a touch of irritation in her blue eyes now. “Shiro, this is… the best news I’ve had besides ‘you’re alive – again’!”

He gasped for air and wrapped his arms around her, snuggling her into his broad chest. “Oh my god. We’re going to be parents.”

She held him just as tightly. “Trees help me, if you do something stupid and leave me to bring up this kid on my own…”

“No promises,” he said with a teasing grin. “Knowing I have my own child to protect is going to make me even more reckless.”

She made a mock growl-whine of irritation, but he laughed and bent down to kiss her.


	13. Once More Unto the Fray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hence commences my sketchy rewrite of S8, because I did not find it emotionally satisfying. I think because they let power creep affect them, trying to make the stakes bigger than they'd ever been before - but they neglected to ground it in the characters. Also possibly a misguided desire to subvert expectations? So my story is a bit predictable and it doesn't threaten the entire multiverse... but it felt good to write.
> 
> Forest date music: [All Mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPgdVxIRZFw) by ONE OK ROCK.

Chapter 13: Once More Unto the Fray

The Atlas was due to launch from Earth the next day; Shiro had mandated a final day of leave for everyone going on the hunt for Honerva, and then spent it himself with Elslince in the gorgeous highlands of Colorado, not too far from Galaxy Garrison and not too close either. She was grateful, even though it had been her own recommendation. There were so many things that needed his attention, especially at this late date, and he could easily have cited those as more important. He almost did, she could tell. But he of all people needed a day to rest now, and he seemed more obliging towards her than usual since her pregnancy revelation, so it hadn’t been nearly as hard as she’d expected to persuade him that ‘in her medical _and_ personal, completely 100% biased opinion’, they needed to go on a walk in the woods.

She loved Earth’s woods and mountains. They were like Teler’s, but they smelled different, the patterns were different, and certainly the fauna were very different. The ‘squirrels’, in particular, were enchanting and she wasted a lot of time observing a family of them scampering over their heads. She’d seen them before on other outings, but she wasn’t tired of them yet!

Shiro had other observations. “That’s tempting,” he said, gesturing to a long straightaway on the trail before them.

“How so?” she asked, smiling up at him, enjoying the lack of stress tension in his face.

“I just wanna run to the other end as fast as I can.”

“That’s such a Human thing,” she said, laughing. “Go on, then. But wait for me when you get there!”

“Of course I’ll- no, I’m not waiting, I’ll come back to you. I’d suggest you run, too, but-”

“Shiro,” she said rather archly, “I’m not going to show even a little bit for another few phoebs. I’m perfectly capable of also running, but firstly I can’t keep up with your super-soldier strength and stamina, and secondly I don’t feel the same way as you. I want to walk and breathe slow!”

“Okay, okay!” He held up his hands in mock-surrender. “Just be sure to watch me then, okay?”

Now that she could very happily assent to, and in fact she would have done it anyway. He was glorious in motion, muscles contracting and releasing in smooth rhythm under a snug white t-shirt and dark grey pants. She swooned privately over his broad, firm shoulders, admiring the perfect trapezoidal figure he cut – “like a Dorito”, according to Lance, which had warranted explanation and then sampling – and the perfect control he had over his body.

Now he was turning back at the end of the straightaway, and she could admire him from the front, the forelock of his white hair bouncing, a look of slight concentration on his handsome scarred face. Her own eyes got larger as she realized he was coming straight at her, but before she could be too reflexively concerned that he might somehow collide with her, he put both hands on her waist and lifted her high in the air, swinging her around like a child. They were both laughing as he came to a stop, letting her settle against his chest with his arms about her waist. The sun was shining down behind her, and reflexively her hair billowed, soaking it up, swirling in lazy, happy whorls. He gazed up at her, and the laughter faded into adoration; he seemed frozen by her and she blushed at the intensity.

“You’re the most beautiful person in the universe,” he said breathlessly.

She blushed harder. “Th-thanks. I don’t think that can be true, b-but thanks.”

“I haven’t heard you stutter in a while.” He was grinning again. “You’re the most adorable person in the universe, too.”

“N-no, that’s Pidge. A-are you going to put me down at all?”

“Nah. You can see better from up here.”

While that was true, she was going to get antsy if she didn’t walk eventually. But before she could say anything about it, Shiro leaned in and kissed her, and she completely forgot what she was going to say, letting her hair envelop him as it pleased. He turned and leaned her into a tree, and she shuddered at the pleasant pressure of full-body contact, tightening her arms around his shoulders and wrapping her legs around him.

His grey round-pupiled eyes were strange when he pulled away to breathe – somehow aroused and sad at the same time. “I don’t actually _want_ to go back to war. I mean, I want to end it, and make the galaxy safe, especially for our children, and I want to face my duty and I’d never leave it up to someone else, but… this moment… I don’t want it to end. And it’s… it hurts, a bit, to feel this carefree, this happy, this much in love, to actually have a future to live for, something I haven’t felt since…” He stopped, but she could taste the name unspoken, and it didn’t hurt her, only saddened her. “And to know that we might never have another time like this again…” He broke off again, trying to turn away. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling, and I-I’ve ruined the moment…”

She wasn’t letting him run away to self-inflict more misery that easily. “Shiro, breathe.” She wrapped arms and legs and hair around him, turning him back to face her. “Look at me. I’m here for you. You haven’t ruined anything.”

“El…”

She kissed him, and when she felt he might be sufficiently distracted, continued. “I think it must be only natural for you to feel as you say. I don’t really have any advice, I’m not a psychologist. But you’re not going to upset me today. What would you like?”

“I-I’m not really sure,” he said, still struggling with conflicting feelings that tensed his body like a wire. It was mildly uncomfortable to be caught in that anxious embrace. “What would you like?”

She smiled. “I want to kiss you.” It wouldn’t solve anything. It might not even help him relax if he couldn’t take his mind off the uncertain darkness that surely lay in their future just for a few minutes. She would have to be very… ‘persuasive’. For his own good.

She was.

They sat by a small lake, watching the water lap very gently at the shore. Her head was against his shoulder, hair twining slowly around his warm fuzzy flesh arm. “How far we’ve come,” she said. “What would Jassa think, I wonder.” Her sister had dated a boy for a short time, but they’d broken up long before Jassa enlisted. She’d never had the chance Elslince had now.

“I think she’d be proud of you,” Shiro said, his voice resonating into her head and body.

“Oh, yes, but she’d also tease me.”

“About what?”

“About everything, of course.” She giggled. “Tease me about marrying a pink man.”

She felt him looking down at her in perplexity. “Humans are shades of brown, El.”

She snorted. “When you’ve been surrounded all your life by skin tones in shades of green, your brown is _very_ pink. Comes from having all that iron in your blood, gross.”

“I guess light skin is actually more translucent…” He lifted his hair-twined hand and inspected the skin on the back of it.

“Mmhmm. Now, Hunk and Kinkade are actually brown, although it’s still a reddish brown, not a greenish brown.”

“Why would it be a greenish brown?” Shiro asked, egging her on.

“Because that’s what I’m used to, silly?” She gave him a gentle shove with her shoulder, he pushed back, she pushed back again, and he gave and fell over with her sprawled on top of him. She pushed herself up to look down at him, and he gazed up at her adoringly.

“You’re an angel.”

“I thought angels were white.”

“Angels _wear_ white. In popular media. They can totally be green. And wear pink. You’re beautiful, if I didn’t mention that already.”

“You’re magnificent.”

“Aww, thanks. We should start getting back or we’ll be late for dinner with Keith and Curtis,” he said, making no move to get up.

“You’re right,” she said, and sat up.

Shiro caught her around the waist. “Nah, stay here with me.”

“You _just_ said,” she objected, wriggling; he was grinning like a loon and she was giggling trying to get free.

It took another ten minutes to get him up and moving in the direction of their shuttle, but once they reached it, he said “Watch this!” and slammed the throttle forward.

“ _You don’t have to show off for me_ ,” she cried from the depths of the co-pilot’s seat, clutching her harness.

“It’s fun, though!” So she let him have it, although a few minutes later the Black Lion cruised by about twice as fast and Shiro pretended he was responsible again, mock-grumbling about how he wasn’t trying to race anything.

She was the first one to reach the ejection pod clamped in Black’s jaws, apprehension thrumming through her. It couldn’t be true, what they said, it was impossible that Haggar – Honerva – whoever – had opened the Quintessence field and gotten Lotor back out. But she didn’t disbelieve them either. Why they had asked for her, though… she was afraid to find out, but it was already clear just from seeing the dark grey and blue pod.

Shiro was right behind her, and the Paladins were hurrying over from their lions. “Report, Keith.” His voice was calm and steady and professional on the surface, but underneath she could feel his fear. He’d held on to the last possible moment waiting for Voltron to return from the depths of the white hole, and she could practically hear his heart still thudding.

“Why did you do that, Keith!?” Allura was demanding furiously. “We barely got out of there in time! You almost sacrificed everything – for Lotor!”

“Yeah, I did,” Keith said, unrepentently. “Whatever Honerva wants him for, if she went to all the trouble of _breaking the universe_ – _again_ – she can’t have him.”

“Pretty slick, though,” Lance said. “I don’t think I could have pulled that off. The explosion almost got through the portal after us.” Keith shrugged.

“Is he even in there?” Pidge asked, bouncing on her toes to get a better look. “Is he alive?”

Hunk had already begun fiddling with the seal on the pod, and now it opened.

Everyone gasped.

“He certainly _looks_ dead,” Keith said. “Lance, poke him.”

“No way! He gives me the creeps.”

“I’m far better trained to poke him, anyway,” Elslince said, and brought out her scanner. Lotor’s body was sprawled haphazardly across his cockpit, his hair matted and tattered and _everywhere_ , covering his face. His mouth was hanging open and his lips looked desiccated, but a visual inspection of more wasn’t yet possible. His armour was clinging to his body, but it looked… melted, somehow.

She felt the blood drain from her face as her scanner made its preliminary report. “H-h-he has a pulse!” She could feel panic explode inside her; what to do to save him? “Brain activity is minimal… Let’s get him to the med-bay, immediately!” What to do, what to do, what to do!? She checked his eyes; the pupils were dilated so far there was nothing left of the pale blue to see in the yellow sclera. She let the lids slide shut quickly to prevent optic damage. No response, not even a tick in the shallow, shallow breathing.

“Oh my god,” Hunk exclaimed. “How is that even possible?”

“Quintessence field must have kept him from dying,” Lance said grimly. “It’s like, pure lifeforce or whatever, right?”

“But he probably hasn’t eaten or drunk anything since he went in, which would be… deca-phoebs ago now,” Hunk said in horror.

“Can you save him?” Shiro asked her.

She took a deep breath and put her determined face on. “I’m going to quiznacking well try.”

Allura turned and walked away quickly.

“I realize this may have turned up the heat against us,” Keith said to Shiro quietly. “Honerva’s going to be twice as pissed as before. She’ll stop at nothing to get him back, clearly, and she’s already sacrificed multiple planets in the effort. But just letting her have him…”

“I think you did the right thing,” Shiro said. “I’ll stand by your decision.” He looked at the body. “I don’t think this is going to change our gameplan right away. We’ll have to see what happens.”

She looked down at the miserable half-invisible face as the medics secured the body to the stretcher. His hair had matted into a sheet; it would have to be cut off. She’d heard him caught out in his lies and schemes, she’d heard him succumb to madness and try to murder her friends… but she’d sworn an oath to help any and all in need of her skills. Whether she still had hope for his mind and soul, she couldn’t say, but she would do everything in her power to give him the chance to live free or die honourably.

“’Scuse us, Doctor Elslince?” She looked up to see Kinkade and Rizavi leaning into her office, Kinkade a little awkward, Rizavi manic as usual. Wolfy started up under her desk, alarmed at their sudden appearance, but subsided when he saw who it was. “We’re interviewing various personnel about their jobs here, trying to provide a look at day-to-day life on the Atlas, and-”

“And we want _YOU_ to tell us all about what it’s like being a non-human doctor on a human ship!” Rizavi exclaimed, brandishing the camera wildly. “You’ve been with Voltron through it all – their first steps, the Resistance, the Battle for Earth! What’s it like working on aliens?”

“Hmm…” Elslince thought, hair curling in thought. Rizavi zoomed in, fascinated. “It’s really exciting!” she said, chirpily. “Shiro was my very first patient ever, and goodness it was difficult! He was so handsome it was hard to concentrate!” Rizavi looked a little disturbed by her forthrightness, but Kinkade was chuckling softly.

“Okay, but humans in general?” Rizavi prompted. Elslince got the feeling she was looking for something… specific. Maybe to do with something Lance and Hunk had told her once about old human fears about aliens probing butts or something. She was a _doctor_ , come on.

“Humans are weird,” was what she did say. “Maybe it’s just because I never met a sapient mammal until I was grown up, but like, you have iron-based blood, and you don’t photosynthesize, and your _hair_ doesn’t _move_.” Rizavi pulled at her hair with a perturbed look. “Oh! But you’re easy to work on – even without having any redundancies, you’re really resilient! That’s probably the main reason Shiro recovered when I first patched him up. And all the other times I patched him up. He really does his best to get hurt, I think sometimes.”

“Probably so he can come see his wife more often,” Rizavi said, smirking.

“It’s because he’s a hero -” An alarm sounded from her desk – something had changed with her most important patient, the one who’d been in a coma for two weeks. “Excuse me! Gotta run!”

“Wait! Is that- the-” Rizavi didn’t even manage to get a whole sentence out before she’d hopped, skipped, and skidded to Lotor’s private recovery room. The pilots followed her, of course, but this room did not have an observation window. Once she shut the door, her patient would have some privacy. Not that she didn’t want to hang out with them, but she could tell them what was going on later.

As she entered the room, thoughts of the pilots left her mind entirely. Lotor’s eyes were open, but he’d hardly moved yet, still too weak, perhaps. He certainly hadn’t made any effort to yank out any of the various tubes taking care of him, so that was good. As she hurried in, his gaze turned languidly in her direction, but there was something oddly blank about it.

“Hello again, Your Highness,” she said softly, an anxious trembling suddenly seizing her. What would seeing her again inspire in him? Anger, despair? “Are you well enough to talk?” She consulted the computer to give herself more time. Except for the starvation that had withered his body away, his functions were returning to normal parameters. They had been for some time, but it was reassuring to check.

“H-h… h…” he tried. His voice was dried and raspy, disused for literal deca-pheobs.

“It’s all right if you can’t,” she said, reaching out to lightly pat his shoulder. Behind her, her medic assistant came in. Rizavi was still hovering with the camera in the hallway. “Rizavi, not now. Jordan, I think these need to be adjusted, please. Your Highness, please rest. Recover your strength for now. We won’t discuss anything until you are well again.”

He took a deep breath and tried again. “Hhh… hhh… who are you…?”

She froze, staring at him. “I’m Elslince, remember…? The… the doctor with Voltron…”

“V-Voltron…?” He was attempting to sit up now, and doing rather an excellent job of it, too. He was recovering faster than she’d predicted, perhaps aided by residual quintessence absorption. At the very least, he appeared less tired than he had when she first entered, and he certainly didn’t seem inclined to return to sleep. His strength appeared to be growing by the minute. “I… remember… nothing. W-where am I? W-who am I?” Fear was growing on his face, and he reached for the tubes in his nose supplying food and air.

She wrapped both her hands around his large calloused one gently, stopping him. He was shaking, and maybe she was a little too. “Please, don’t get upset. I’m here to help you.” She couldn’t speak for anyone else, particularly Allura or Romelle, but if he truly was amnesiac, she wanted to be very gentle with him. “Your questions may take some time to answer, but let’s start with where we are. You are on the human flagship Atlas, in the medical bay. All these tubes are to help you get better. You seem to be recovering faster than expected, so I can remove some of them. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” he said, staring at her, all lost and desperate looking. While he was still tall and lean and imposing, he was… less overwhelming with his hair cut short and dressed in loose human patient clothing. And with that piteous look on his face.

“This may feel a bit strange, but it will be over quickly, so try not to move too much,” she said, and took out the nasal feeds, and then, after consulting with Jordan about the intravenous feeds in his arm, all of those as well. He really was recovering spectacularly quickly now that he’d woken up. “You will still need to rest for a while, and eat and drink well, to fully recover. I’d like to keep you in the medical bay for observation for a while, if that’s all right. I promise I will not hold you here against your will after that.” She couldn’t speak for anyone else, but she could give him that, at least.

“Thank you,” he said. Then: “You called me ‘Your Highness’. Who am I?”

Still sharp as a blade, even with no memories. “You are…” She pondered how much to tell him. “Well, your name is Lotor.”

“Lotor… That feels right. But the title?”

Persistent as ever, too. “Everything has changed since we last saw you, but you were once the Prince of the Galra Empire.”

He digested that for a while, while she quietly asked Jordan to go inform Shiro that Lotor was awake. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me more than that?”

“I… It’s a confusing and painful story for everyone involved. I’d like you to recover more before worrying about the past.”

“All right then.” He looked at her, then suddenly smiled. He was clearly forcing it, deliberately trying not to worry about the things he couldn’t remember, and yet somehow it was more relaxed than any smile she’d seen on him… before. “Then who are you, Elslince?”

“I’m a Teleran doctor,” she said promptly, smiling. “I was raised by my grandparents on my home planet, and a few deca-phoebs ago, a human pilot named Shiro fell out of the sky onto our village, and I was given the honour of patching him up as part of my final medical exam. He came back for me a few phoebs later, rescuing me from… er… kidnappers, and I went with him to the stars where with his friends and the mystical robot Voltron, we fought against tyranny and for the freedom of the universe. Just recently we saved his homeworld from an invasion, and now we go to hunt down the last and greatest threat to peace in the universe aboard the IGF Atlas, of which he’s become the captain. And, er, I married him.”

“How terribly romantic,” he said, smiling even more broadly. “I love it.”

She smiled and blushed, and that was when the door opened and a whole bunch of people stormed in. The Paladins, Shiro, Acxa.

Allura had pushed to the front of the Voltron crew, and Lotor barely had time to look alarmed before she snarled at him: “And what do you have to say for yourself now!?”

Lotor cringed away from her anger, but Elslince stomped up to Allura, incensed, protective of her patient. “He’s amnesiac, would you like to try again!?”

“He’s what?” Lance exclaimed.

“How much?” Shiro asked.

“Everything,” Elslince said. “He didn’t remember his own name before I told him. And I only informed you lot that he was awake because I wanted you to be in the know, _not_ so you could parade down here and stress him out before he’s fully recovered! Get out!”

Lance touched Allura’s hand. “She’s right, let’s come back later.”

Allura glared daggers at Lotor. “No. If he needs his memories back, he can have them!” She lunged past Elslince, setting both hands on either side of Lotor’s head, ignoring his terrified expression, and _did_ something.

Lotor screamed. And kept screaming.

“Allura!” Everyone cried out at once, and Lance and Shiro and Acxa stepped forward, perhaps to pull her back, but they hesitated, unwilling to interfere in magic that only Allura understood. Her hands were glowing, and Lotor’s eyes were glowing in resonance with them. She stepped back as the glow faded, but Lotor continued howling in anguish, tumbling from the cot to the floor, clutching at his head.

“What have you done!?” Elslince shouted at Allura. “I told you to leave him alone!” She clenched her fists. The fact that Allura had disregarded her in the place where she held authority infuriated her, and if she hadn’t remembered that it was unprofessional, she probably would have punched her, even if Allura could destroy her in hand-to-hand combat.

“He deserves to remember,” Allura snarled. “Every bit of pain he’s caused, every lie and betrayal, every death upon his head, he should know all of it! He’s a monster like-!”

A low, despairing chuckle cut her off. “Like my father. I know, I know. I don’t even deserve to live.” The chuckle turned abruptly to sobs, and Lotor buried his face in his hands as tears poured from his eyes, weeping like he would never stop. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I know it’s not enough… I never wanted to hurt anyone, but I could not see any choice… I always tried…”

Allura inhaled, but Elslince snarled at her, and the princess paused, shocked at such a strong response. Elslince knelt before Lotor, reaching out to him, but he cringed away from her, pushing her back from him before she could get close enough to do anything – a hug, a blanket, anything to help him cope with… everything.

“Shiro, help,” she murmured, and Shiro moved sharply to defend her. “No! Not that.”

“What do you need?” he asked in a low voice.

Acxa appeared by her side. “Let me. …Lotor.”

“I’m sorry,” Lotor sobbed.

Acxa said nothing, only reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. Lotor didn’t push her away, and this gave Elslince the opportunity to touch his other shoulder. Shiro crouched behind her, reaching out as well.

Lance stepped forward, turned to Allura with a pleading expression. “What was the point of saving him, if we’re just gonna punish him again? I know he’s betrayed all of us, and we were all hurt really bad, and we all tried to kill each other, but can’t we try just one more time? He’s _not_ his father.”

Allura’s shoulders were shaking and her face was set. “Really? You would forgive him so easily?”

Lance hedged uncomfortably. “Well, not forgive, not right away at least, but look at him. I don’t think he’s just remorseful because he got caught. He’s… He really feels it, Allura. I want to give him a chance.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Allura spat. “I’ll let _you_ give him a try, but I refuse to interact with that – that monster.”

Lance looked at the floor. “Okay.”

“I’ll let him have a chance, too,” Hunk said. “But if he puts one foot out of line…”

“I won’t hesitate,” Keith finished.

Elslince stood. “If you’ve quite finished _traumatizing my patient_ , I’m going to ask you to leave again.” Allura turned on her heel and stalked out, and Hunk and Keith followed her.

Elslince turned back to Lotor. “You can relax here. Nothing will happen to you here. I promise. You can stay here as long as you want.”

“I’ll get you filled in on everything that’s happened since… since you left,” Acxa said. “If ever you meant a word you said about working for the peace of the galaxy, you’ll need to know so you can join us.”

“You going to be all right?” Shiro asked Elslince.

Elslince nodded. “Yes. You can go where you’re needed. I’ll call if it’s important.” He squeezed her hand and left.

Just why she felt so protective, she wasn’t sure. Was it truly just the plight of the man before her, broken beyond anything she’d seen before? Or was it her maternal instinct strengthening as the sprout grew inside her womb?

Probably both.

“What’s going on over here?” Shiro asked, ignoring Burr’s constant stream of toxic sarcasm.

“That’s the arm wrestling contest,” Burr said dourly. “It ain’t for people like you.”

“Why’s that?” Shiro asked, looking down at his mechanical arm. The other was wrapped securely around Elslince. “Because of my arm?”

Burr laughed. “Nah. Arm wrestling is for the young and strong. You’re old like me. Those kids would break you in half, mechanical arm or not.”

As Burr was speaking, Elslince could feel Shiro’s ire building, and she was not surprised when he removed his arm from around her and thumped his fist into the palm of his prosthetic. “Is it too late to sign up?”

“I’m sure we could work something out,” Burr said.

Shiro looked down at Elslince. “Sorry, El. I’ll be right back.”

He hadn’t been looking at Burr, so he might have missed the sneaky grin on the Drazanian’s face, but she hadn’t. “Kick all their butts, Silver Boy.”

Shiro dominated the early rounds with ease, as he got closer to the top, the announcer started paying him more attention – and Shiro began hamming it up more, showing off with his prosthetic between rounds, even though it was getting tougher. The rest of the crew showed up for the final match, surrounding Elslince with cheerful chatter and showing off their loot. “Is this where you’ve been the whole time?” “Look at Coran’s trophy, isn’t it awesome?” “You really missed out!”

“No, she didn’t,” Keith said, whose grouch level was still 30% higher than everyone else’s.

“No, I’m good!” she said sweetly. “What could be better than seeing Shiro goof off a little?”

“I mean, I’ve been here for the last hour, and it’s pretty good,” said Curtis of the bridge crew, backing her up.

The announcer introduced Shiro, and the crowd booed him – good-naturedly, mostly, but she still cheered as loud as she could to drown them out, and the Atlas crew helped her. He looked good in his confident aura, the cheeky smirk, the saucy glare.

And then the announcer introduced the former Warden of Beta Traz, and they froze in horror. The Warden stomped up to the table, and for a moment everything was tense. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but there was a lot of male snarling, that much she could see.

And then suddenly, the Warden looked away and began to mumble something, and she saw Shiro’s expression soften in surprise and sympathy.

Abruptly, they began, straining against each other, both using mechanical arms, grunting as they heaved. The team was screaming bloodthirsty things around her, the crowd was yelling at the top of their lungs, and Shiro let out a roar and suddenly slammed the Warden’s arm to the table. She cheered wildly, putting both hands in the air, letting her hair poof around her joyfully. Curtis was clapping beside her, eyes filled with admiration. “The captain is amazing.” She could hardly hear him over the noise, over the Paladins surging forward to lift their leader high.

“He really is,” she gushed. “I knew he’d win. He never gives up!”

“You’re very lucky,” Curtis said with a dreamy sigh. “Strong, brave, daring, disciplined, _and_ handsome as a movie star. I mean, he’s lucky to have you too, but I’m gay.”

She gave him a brilliant grin. “I am extremely lucky. And I don’t mind anyone having a crush on my husband, I feel the same way of course! Just don’t let me catch you trying to seduce him.”

“Ma’am! I would never. While on duty.” She laughed at the teasing and went to join the Paladins swarming Shiro, who was still flexing triumphantly, now with a gold belt around his upper arm. The Galaxy Garrison uniform was not made for such poses and it looked very odd. It reminded her that he was still quite a young, rather silly man when he wasn’t being a warrior. And she adored him for it.


	14. Bring Them Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take a bunch of drama llamas, a generous sprinkling of Clockie metas ([example](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/175288028390/lotors-redemption-may-already-have-started)), a butt-load of action scenes, and my personal taste in endings, and this is what I came up with for a Voltron finale. Smaller scale than the show? Yes. Do I like it more? Yes. Hope you do too.
> 
> This last chapter is long. Think of it as a series finale double special lol! Side note: Lotor’s fighter’s colours are based on the colours of the ‘alliance’ banner from S5. (It was Lance’s idea, probably.)

Chapter 14: Bring Them Home

The situation in the medbay was not sustainable. Lotor was regaining his physical strength well, but psychologically he was a complete guilt-ridden wreck. Elslince was considering putting him in a strait-jacket in a padded room, not because he was insane, but because he kept trying to harm himself. She and Acxa were taking it in turns to watch over him, to make sure he wouldn’t try to kill himself. And she wished she didn’t have to, he was paranoid enough as it was without being observed constantly, but she didn’t want to lose him now.

It was tragic, she considered. He’d once been so confident and clever and charismatic, and now he lay listlessly on the floor in a corner of his room, staring at nothing, doing nothing, saying and eating as little as possible. He looked very young with short hair, and very vulnerable. Sometimes he would cry as if he would never stop, and sometimes he would beat his head on the walls or the floor – then she had to hurry in with two or three medics to make sure he didn’t give himself a concussion, though he usually gave up fairly quickly once she arrived.

His past misdeeds had faded in her mind in light of the problem of healing him, of finding the solution to his wounds. She no longer cared about the undeniably horrible things he had done, the ways he’d betrayed them; she believed him when he said that he never wanted to hurt people. It wasn’t her place to judge him for all of that, though it was a lot easier to abstain when he was so completely remorseful. All that mattered was that she protect him until he was… well enough to function on his own. To hope for him to someday find peace with his life, and for everyone else to find peace with him, seemed far too distant a goal to dream about. In the first week, even the first goal seemed an impossible task, almost as impossible as his atoning for everything he’d done in his long, long life.

Until she gained an unlikely ally. “Hey, El,” Lance said, rapping on her office doorframe.

“What’s up?” she asked, always happy to see him.

“The opposite of gravity,” he answered, grinning, and she blinked a few times before she got the joke and laughed. His smug grin faded after only a moment. “I was wondering, would I be able to talk to Lotor?”

“Oh, I don’t see why not,” she said. “Why, though?” If this was anything to do with Allura, she was vetoing it.

Lance sighed. “I just thought having another person to talk to might help. I was talking with Keith, and he said Shiro said you’re working really hard to help him. And Acxa, sure, that makes sense, they had a strong relationship at one point and she doesn’t really connect to anyone on the Atlas nearly as well so she has lots of time to spend on him, but you’re…”

“I have more responsibilities than wearing myself out over Lotor, is that what you’re trying to say?” she guessed.

“Well, that and you’re pregnant, so stress is bad,” he said, refreshingly frank after the awkwardness of the other younger Paladins. “My sister – but anyway, I just felt kinda bad for the guy, so I want to help.”

“He’s going to be so surprised,” she said. “You were really hard on him before.”

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, well, part of it was being jealous that Allura seemed to be having such a good time with him, and I’m over that now. I think. Mostly. And the rest of it was kind of justified? But right now he’s completely helpless and alone. He had a crap-ton of power then, and I felt like we didn’t in comparison, and now he has nothing, and almost no one.”

“I understand,” she said. “You can have free access.”

Lance brightened considerably. “Cool! Oh, can I take him out for walkies, too? ‘Snot good to keep him cooped up in one room all the time.”

“He’s not a… doggo,” she said, trying to remember the correct word for the Earth animal. From Lance’s grin, she got it wrong. “And if you can get him out, go ahead. He’s refused so far, and I’m not strong enough to drag him to the exercise room down the hall. Oh, I should warn you – Acxa’s already in there right now.”

“Got it!” Lance said. “I’ll be really nice, I promise. Thanks for everything!”

Lotor was as flabbergasted as she’d expected, though he tried to hide it. “What are _you_ doing here? Didn’t you hate me the most?”

“If you’ve come to gloat, you can forget it while I’m here,” Acxa began.

Lance stopped short, apparently not as prepared as he had thought. “ _Hate_ yo- I never hated you, dude, and I’m super not here to gloat. I was suspicious and jealous and a pain in the butt, yeah, but, I never hated you.” He sat down on the floor equidistant from both of them. “Never.”

“I don’t understand,” Lotor said. “You have reasons…”

“Sure I do,” Lance said, wavering between ‘this is serious, I should be serious’ and ‘this is too serious, gotta lighten the mood’. “But I also think we could have been friends if… I dunno. Romelle’s never, ever going to forgive you, that’s for sure. I just… wanna give you a chance, for my own part, you know? You need help right now, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Of course,” Lotor said dryly. “Save the poor broken worthless creature.”

Lance huffed. “I’m really not trying to be condescending. Look, dude, you’ve clearly never had a normal social interaction in your life, so how about getting some practice in-”

Lotor frowned, as if about to say something, but at that moment, the intercom fizzled with unusual, ominous static, and the screen by the door turned on. They froze in horror to see…

“I will only say this once,” Honerva said. “Return my son to me, and I will allow you to live. Bring him to me on the planet Feyiv. If you do not-”

“Now hold on a minute!” Lance yelled at the screen, and through the intercom, she could hear alarmed noises from everyone else on the ship, including the other Paladins and the bridge crew. Lotor had fallen over and was curled with his hands over his eyes and his head in Acxa’s lap.

“…I will destroy what remains of this pathetic universe,” Honerva said as if she hadn’t heard them. “You have one phoeb from now.”

“No!” Lance exclaimed, jumping up, as Honerva disconnected.

Shiro’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Paladins, Lotor, senior staff, Conference Room Alpha _now_.”

“I’m coming too,” Acxa said fiercely.

“And me,” Elslince said. Lotor would need every ally he had.

“On the _double_ ,” Shiro ordered, and Acxa dragged Lotor to his feet.

He was shaking. “H-how d-did she… I d-don’t want to…”

Acxa hesitated, clearly unwilling to tell a comforting lie when she didn’t know the truth. “I don’t know. But I will fight for you today.”

“So will I,” Lance said. “We’re not giving you up to her.”

Lotor looked up at them gratefully, and there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“Thanks for coming,” Shiro said. “Now, after all the trouble we went to in getting Lotor away from Honerva in the first place, I don’t think anyone wants to just hand him over.” Almost everyone nodded. Lotor looked around at them all, shocked. “But what exactly is the position we’re in? We don’t know how she hacked our system to deliver her message, how she intends to destroy the universe, or what her resources are. Or what she would do with Lotor once she had him. Thoughts?”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists!” Lance cried immediately.

“This is out of my field, but Lance is right,” Iverson said.

“Agreed,” Keith said. “She can’t have him. We’d just be buying time, in any case, and the outcome might be worse than if we just defied her again. Or bringing him to her might be _how_ she destroys the universe, or something. She can’t be trusted.”

“She still has Sincline, in addition to all her other Robeasts, and the Altean colonists,” Hunk said. “We… probably _don’t_ want to find out what she’s planning to do with it.”

“Is that a vote for or against?” Pidge asked.

“Uhhhh… For or against what? Keeping him or giving him?”

“I’m confused,” Lance said. “Can we get back to the point?”

“Do you think she’s listening now? I’d hate to think she was listening in right now,” Hunk said nervously, glancing at the ceiling. “Pidge, do you know if she is?”

“I’ve been running scans since it occurred,” Commander Holt said. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to determine how she did it, which means probably magic. Which concerns me, as you might imagine – how come she didn’t do it before? What could she do to us with it now?”

“I will begin my own investigation when we are done here,” Allura said. “If I might say something?”

Shiro nodded to her, and she stood. “I want to say for the record that I think Keith is right about one thing – we’d just be buying time. But we _need_ time. A phoeb is not enough time to defeat her. It’s barely enough time to get to Feyiv from here without using a portal. Unless we used the Black Lion-”

“No,” Keith said.

“I mean, do you think she’s just going to withdraw once she has what she wants?” Lance exclaimed.

“No, but at least she won’t destroy the universe!” Allura retorted.

“I think you’re biased,” Acxa said. “Honerva is terrifyingly powerful, but it _is_ possible to trick or to rattle her. She’s not a god, even if she thinks she is.”

“ _I’m_ biased!?” Allura cried. “How dare you! You’re biased too!”

“Settle down!” Shiro said. “This is not the time to lose tempers.”

Allura inhaled, said nothing, glared, and sat down.

“I think we need to fight,” Keith said. “It’s risky, I know. But let’s not underestimate ourselves. If we all work together – if we get everyone in the universe on our side against her, there’s no way she can win. It’s just not possible.”

“In a phoeb?” Allura said.

“We know what she’s going to do if we don’t do what she asks in a phoeb,” Keith said. “We _don’t_ know what she’s going to do if we do exactly what she asks. I say we gamble.”

“You look like you want to say something,” Shiro said to Lotor. “Go ahead.”

Lotor raised tragic eyes from the tabletop. “I… I don’t want to go back to her. I’d rather die.”

“You’ve been trying to die anyway,” Acxa said. “Stop. I’m not going to let you.”

“You have?” Hunk asked anxiously. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. That sucks. I mean. You did try to kill us-”

“-And _you_ left _him_ for dead, so aren’t you even on that particular point?” Acxa retorted.

Hunk huffed. “I’m just saying, I’m not forgiving him just because he’s so depressed that he wants to kill himself… but it does suck that he’s so depressed he wants to kill himself.”

“Makes it more difficult to hate him, doesn’t it?” Acxa sniped.

“You’re so-” Pidge started.

“Guys-” Shiro began.

“I-I wasn’t done,” Lotor said, and everyone quieted back down. “I don’t know why you’re treating me so well… but I’m grateful, truly. If I can help you at all… in any way…”

“Well, I had an idea,” Lance said before anyone else could butt in antagonistically. “Remember how we messed with Zarkon’s prisoner exchange? We could…”

“She’d be expecting that,” Allura said. “She may not have been there, but I’m sure she found out how Lotor killed Zarkon.”

“If she found out, it wasn’t through us,” Acxa said. “But she probably _is_ expecting that, it’s a lot riskier than trying it with Zarkon, and he may not be ready for that yet.”

“He has a whole phoeb,” Hunk said. “Isn’t that enough time?”

Elslince shook her head. “Is a phoeb enough time to undo deca-phoebs of damage? Physically, yes, due to his unusual circumstances. I’d say he’s nearly back to his old strength. But mentally, emotionally…”

“…Dayak,” Lotor whispered into the table.

“What?” Commander Holt leaned forward, a hand to his round human ear. “What’s a da-yak?”

“Find Dayak,” Lotor said, more strongly, looking up at them. “If anyone can prepare me for such an encounter, she can.”

“Got it,” Shiro said. “Matt, Pidge, you’re on that.”

“Roger!” said the Holt siblings cheerfully.

“Allura, contact _everyone_ and inform them of the situation. Do your Honerva-proofing thing if you can, but right now we need our forces ready to go for this impending confrontation.”

“All right,” Allura said. “Opening that many portals at once will take a lot of strength, but I can do it.”

Shiro stood and slapped his hands together. “All right. We’re setting course for Feyiv. Everyone get to it!”

Elslince was wakened that night by a soft buzzer – something was going on in Lotor’s room. Shiro grumbled into her shoulderblades, snuggling closer, but she disentangled herself and slipped away. “I’ll be right back, dearest.”

“Mmph. If you gotta.”

There was nothing on the surveillance camera feed, only Lotor looking terrified at nothing in front of him, scrambling backwards into a corner of his room. She ran, ignoring Shiro sitting bolt upright in reaction, her bare feet slapping on the cold metal decks.

She slapped open the door to Lotor’s room, panting hard, hair flailing in uncoordinated knots, and froze.

A huge, ethereal white lion stood over Lotor, who still looked frightened, but not terrified as he had before. As she watched, it breathed on him, and he relaxed, Altean markings glowing blue on his cheekbones. Then it turned and looked straight at her. ‘ _Defend him, until he is ready,_ ‘ it said though not in words, and disappeared.

Shiro dashed towards her, ready to fight. “What is it? What happened?”

“Th-there was…” she stammered, still not sure what she had seen.

Lotor lifted luminous eyes to them. “She spoke to me. She gave me strength. I-I…”

“Who?” Shiro asked urgently.

“A white lion,” Elslince said softly.

“I killed her, on Oriande,” Lotor said, wavering between hope and guilt. “But she came to me anyway. How…?”

Allura came running down the corridor. “The Lion Goddess – she was here?”

“Yes,” Lotor said, looking her in the face. “She spoke to me.”

Allura was unexpectedly gentle. “What did she say?”

“She said that this could be my redemption. That I could finally be who I was meant to be. I… I don’t know what that means, and… I don’t want… to be… _controlled_ , but… I… trust her.”

“Yes,” Allura said. “I must as well. She told me that… that I must give you a chance as everyone else is. So… I’m still angry. Nothing will take away what you did to my people. What you did to me. But from now on, we will work together, and we will defeat Honerva together.”

“Thank you,” Lotor said gravely.

“We need to talk,” Kolivan said to Lotor, ignoring Elslince entirely.

Lotor gave him a side-eye. “Can this wait? The doctor’s running more tests.”

“Every second counts now,” Kolivan said. “You must reveal yourself to what’s left of the Galra.”

“No,” Lotor said. “I’m just a lowly half-Galra footsoldier, now. What reason would you have for suggesting such a foolish course of action? I can barely manage myself, let alone an entire nation.”

“Because you are a symbol of hope,” Kolivan said. “They don’t know what happened three deca-phoebs ago, only that you disappeared, and that Honerva destroyed the Kral Zera rather than allow them to replace you. Your miraculous survival would show that they can recover as you did.”

“Would that not play into her hands?” Lotor argued. “Should I really be fulfilling the words of a witch? I promised them a new age of prosperity, an end to the endless war, and promptly left them in the lurch to fragment and kill each other. They will not accept me. And we don’t have time for me to run a hearts-and-minds campaign.”

“The Galra need a leader,” Kolivan said. “They have been banding together under the Voltron Coalition, but they need a fighter, but not one like Zarkon – nor one like me. They need one like you.”

“I won’t do it,” Lotor said. “I’m not the one. No one should owe me – should even offer me their loyalty.” His eyes slid away to the door, and she guessed he was thinking of Acxa.

“Think on it,” Kolivan said, and left.

Lotor huffed a sigh, but she could observe quite clearly how fast his heart was racing. She’d have been annoyed at Kolivan for interrupting and making her redo the test, except that this seemed a really good time to do some therapeutic listening. “What is he thinking? Everything I’ve ever done – _ever_ – has ended in failure.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, and he looked at her in surprise. “I mean, I’m not a psychologist, but you’re used to gambling – and you’re flexible enough in your planning that usually you can pull something positive from any development. When we first met you, we were scared of how you seemed to win every encounter, how you always seemed to get what you wanted.”

“The encounter at the rift gate would suggest otherwise.”

“Those were extraordinary circumstances,” she said. “We might be facing even more extraordinary circumstances at Feyiv… but I’d much rather you were on our side. You’re really good at everything you do.”

“I’m not switching sides,” he began indignantly. “Oh, you meant- sorry. But I’m not going to lead the Galra. That’s a futile endeavour.”

“I’m not going to persuade you one way or another,” she assured him. “That’s not my job. I’m just glad you’ve got the confidence to refuse Kolivan. He’s kind of intimidating! That means you’re improving still. I think. Not a psychologist.”

Finally, his heart rate began to go down. “I’m glad I haven’t disappointed you yet this time.”

“Such a pessimist,” she teased him, though there was more conviction behind his words than maybe was safe to tease. She turned away, hugging herself. “It must be really difficult when the entire universe seems to want to fight you your entire life, I can’t even imagine. I can’t blame you for having planet-sized baggage. All I can do is try to make sure that some small part of the universe doesn’t fight you – and hope that _we_ don’t let _you_ down.”

His eyes bored into her, a strangely vulnerable expression that she only caught a glimpse of; it made her uncomfortable. “I… don’t deserve that. We’ve each betrayed each other too deeply-”

“That’s exactly why I’m saying this!” she exclaimed, and he flinched. “Sorry. But even if we can’t wipe the past clean, even if we can’t start from a truly blank slate, _I_ can make the voluntary choice to trust you.” It was a bizarre replay of their very first interactions, when she’d been so afraid of him – and now she chose to be fearless. “You have my word that at least one person in the galaxy will never hurt you – unless you try to kill Shiro.”

He smiled. “I remember. Your strength has only grown. …You don’t know how envious I am. Of all of you, really.” She didn’t know what to say to that. He was silent a moment. “… _Do_ you think I could lead the Galra again?”

She smiled and shrugged. “I’m just a doctor. But I wouldn’t mind you doing it. So yes, I suppose I think you could.”

He glanced away uncomfortably. “I’ll… think about it.”

A week closer to Feyiv, Matt Holt’s investigations bore fruit, and Dayak was invited to the IGF Atlas. Elslince gave them complete privacy, both in the recuperation room and the exercise room where Dayak dragged him by his ear two hours into her first visit, but whatever was said or done, the change was immediate and remarkable. After the visit from the White Lion, he had gained such confidence that Shiro had allowed him his freedom, but Lance and Acxa still had difficulty in prodding him to the exercise room. Not so with Dayak. After he’d been half a day with her, Elslince would have sworn that he’d had never betrayed them, had never been trapped in the Quintessence field. He was back to his old self as far as she could tell, except for a lingering shyness, and the faint Altean markings that still persisted on his cheekbones. And the haircut. He looked strange in Garrison orange, but he seemed determined to fit in as best he could.

Romelle avoided him like the plague, to no one’s surprise, and felt betrayed that even Allura now seemed to accept him, and was very vocal about it, but there was not much they could do to make the situation better for her. Lotor apologized, repeatedly, but as Lance had guessed, that did very little.

Unsurprisingly, Dayak still believed in him as a leader of the Galra. Very surprisingly, Lotor allowed himself to be talked into trying it. The day after she came, he was teleconferencing with Kolivan and the other remaining Galra commanders, at first simply as an advisor, then as their equal, and before long some sort of switch had been made and the Galra were acknowledging his authority. Elslince wondered how it would turn out, and cheered him on whenever she saw him – which was less and less, after that. He was in Acxa’s hands, now.

The days until they arrived at Feyiv counted down far too quickly, and their preparations were still shaky and last-minute. Their fleet of allies was large but poorly equipped, and Shiro was constantly stressing that they might be torn to pieces by the Robeasts instead of overwhelming them. The Holt siblings and Hunk, their Dayak-locating duty discharged, were giving 120% to finish a new secret project by the projected date. All Elslince could do was ensure the medbay was fully ready for a cataclysmic fight, and wait, and provide Shiro with an oasis of calm in his cabin when he thought to seek it out – which was not often enough for her peace of mind, but this wasn’t the time to interfere.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, two days before they were due to arrive.

“I’m fine,” he said, looking exhausted, uniform rumpled, hair sticking every which way from running his hand through it too many times.

She laughed at him. “Yes, you look just fine. Come here, lovely.”

He made a rueful chuckle and let her tug him into her arms, into the embrace of her hair. And he sighed long. “The build-up is killing me. I want to fight her _now_.”

“So impatient,” she teased him. “You really want me to patch you up that badly?”

“Honestly, I’m more worried for Lotor,” he said, rolling over to rest his chin on her belly. “He’s as reckless as me, if you recall, and if he gets into melee combat with Honerva… there’s no telling where either of them will stop.”

She caressed his short white hair, ran her thumbs down either side of his scar. “I’ll take care of him too. I’ll take care of everyone. I’ll fight anyone who tries to hurt my babies.”

“You already have a baby,” he said, grinning, patting her belly.

“I do. But you’re my baby too,” she said. “And all my patients. Everyone on the Atlas. Everyone in the fleets. Also the civilians.”

“I’m starting to feel not very special,” Shiro said, pouting.

“Also my plants, and Wolfy,” she finished… for the time being. “I tell you, if Honerva brings any weedkiller into _my home_ …”

“Sounds like I should just point you at her with some pruning shears,” he joked. “Everyone else can go home.”

She laughed. “Nah. You’re much better at fighting. I’m just embracing my defensive momma tree instinct.”

He looked up into her eyes, and the smile faded to something very intense, a look so determined and steely it was terrifying. “I will defend you with my life. I swear it.”

She simply stared, unable to speak, and slowly he crumbled. “S-sorry. That wasn’t the right thing to say, was it. It’s just… I’ve let everyone down, at some point or another. My family, Keith, Adam, Voltron. And I won’t let you down this time. Or the baby.”

“I know. It… This is probably not the right thing to say either, but it does bother me, because while I know you want to protect everyone, personally, with your own body, sometimes it seems like… like you’re still trying to die.”

His brows furrowed plaintively. “Not anymore. I have so much more to fight for – to live for now. Old habits die hard?”

It was a lame excuse, and she almost felt angry that he’d tried it. She sat up and leaned forward and kissed him. “I know. And I love you. And just for this little while… could you let me hold you?”

He smiled anxiously, though somehow his grey eyes were unreadable right now. “Anything you want.”

“I’m sorry for being selfish.”

“Everyone’s allowed to be a little selfish. I’m actually glad you’re selfish about me. I’m selfish about you.”

“It doesn’t stop you running headfirst into danger,” she said mournfully. “I’m proud of you, I just worry.” _I want my baby to know its amazing father. I love you too much to give all of you to the universe yet. And if you go, I can’t stop you, because that’s your choice.._.

“Love you. With all my heart.”

It gave her more comfort to have him in her arms, silent, heavy, warm, breathing, with his face buried in her bosom and his prosthetic resting against her spine, warm metallic fingers splayed against the back of her neck. She was too tired to fear the future properly. All she could do was rest in this moment and deal with tomorrow when it came.

Feyiv lay before them. Something glittered between war-form Atlas and the planet, something dark and threatening. “Sincline,” Lotor muttered, from where he stood by Shiro. Allura, standing below by Coran, didn’t react visibly, but Shiro guessed she would be frowning to see it again. Behind, eight Robeasts waited, lined up like honour guards.

Shiro just wished he knew why Honerva wanted Lotor. The explanations offered all seemed weak to him. If this was a family thing… they were the most dysfunctional family he’d ever witnessed, and there was no way he was handing over a living being to more abuse. But why then, was Honerva seeking so much power, political and magical, just to ask for her son? What was her endgoal? What had been her endgoal this entire time?

Until he knew what she was after, he didn’t know what he was supposed to be protecting. ‘Everything’ was not a helpful strategic answer.

Lotor seemed to sense his antsiness, glanced at him. “I’ve dealt with her before. Never with her wielding so much power, but I can advise you how to react.”

“I don’t just want to react, though,” Shiro said. “I’m much more comfortable making the first move.”

“Not this time,” Lotor said, and Shiro nodded. He felt that he and Lotor had come to unspoken terms with each other. Without having to converse too much, they knew where each other stood. Distantly, they could empathize with each other’s circumstances – both knew how it felt to have everything but their anger taken from them, their very sense of self violated. And more than that… wasn’t his business. He would accept and support Lotor while they were on the same side, and give Elslince whatever she needed to take care of him.

The viewscreen before them flickered, and Honerva appeared, dressed in a black armoured space suit, clearly piloting Sincline. “You have brought him.”

“He’s here,” Shiro said. “And we’re not giving him to you.”

“I would die, first!” Lotor exclaimed.

Honerva appeared amused. “Yes, you are. Oh, I see your great ship, and Voltron, and your defiance. I know your fleets are lying in wait. It doesn’t matter. You’re only lucky that soon I won’t even care about punishing you for your ignorant insolence.”

A dark beam shot out from Sincline, aimed directly at the bridge. A brilliant blue shield sprang up before it, not from their shield projectors, but from Allura’s power. The beam hit and sizzled on the shield, but the shield held.

“You don’t want to do this the easy way?” Honerva asked, almost sounding bored and disappointed. “Fine.”

“Allura, now,” Shiro ordered, and the shield vanished as Sincline dove to attack with a giant energy staff, lightning fast – and four portals appeared, portals through which their allied fleets flung themselves, rag-tag bands of all shapes and sizes and colours, firing many beams of their own as they came. Every race who they’d ever worked with, humans, Olkarians, Puigians, Taujeerians, Galrans, the Mer, Reiphodans, Bi-Bis, Telerans, countless others he couldn’t remember the names of, and all the space pirates Zethrid and Ezor could bully into the coalition, they all came, the largest fleet perhaps assembled in history. While casualties were going to be heavy, they’d give the Robeasts stiff competition – and maybe even threaten Sincline through its trans-reality-comet armour.

He glanced at Allura and Lotor. “Go. We need Voltron now.”

Sweet stars, that mecha was fast. He hadn’t been conscious to see Sincline in action previously, and it bothered him. That thing was a _challenge_ to fly against, a challenge to fight. Atlas was definitely going to have trouble with it, if they couldn’t even keep up with a Robeast. He wanted to be in the Black Lion again.

Keith belonged there now. All he had to do was support them.

All he could do was grit his teeth and try to keep his cool, because the situation was getting much too complicated, much too quickly. Voltron was tangling with Sincline, looking strangely boxy and colourful, almost childish, and definitely slow, against its sleek and agile opponent. He winced to hear their struggle over the comms, fighting the urge to charge in recklessly. After all, he had a much better resource to send charging in recklessly.

A narrow-profiled set of gold-streaked purple wings darted past the viewscreen, spiraling effortlessly into a series of barrel-rolls, moving even faster than the MFEs. It spat fire at Sincline and broke away at a near-impossible angle, swooping between the legs of a Robeast and looping gracefully around enemy fire. Shiro grinned to himself. He respected fancy flying, and Lotor had a spectacular hand on the controls. Pidge, Hunk, Matt, and Lotor had worked overtime to assemble the cutting-edge fighter; he wasn’t sure that the paint was quite dry, honestly. But it appeared to work like a charm. And it had gotten Honerva’s attention.

Honerva getting Lotor was another matter entirely. The Robeasts were turning away from the fleets now, ignoring the smaller fire pounding their armour as best they could, to try to ensnare the little fighter in tractor beams. But it slipped delicately between them, twisting and looping, firing its own shots back at them. And now the Atlas came up, firing at the Robeasts with its heavy cannons, forcing them to defend their backs. The heavy Galran cruisers the Alliance could muster flanked the Atlas, using their own tractor beams to hinder the Robeasts while charging their ion cannons.

The battle had begun well for them. But he couldn’t get complacent. The balance of power still teetered on a knife’s edge, and the moment Honerva pressed her attention anywhere except Lotor, they were going to be hard put to it. He barked more orders, felt the Atlas shift against its own internal gravity as they changed course. Fighting against Sincline was not going to work, even in Atlas’s battle form – they were just too slow. But keeping the Robeasts occupied, that they could do. A small ship somersaulted across the viewscreen and exploded. He couldn’t spare the attention to wince right now. Voltron had drawn its largest sword and was chasing Sincline, though the dark mecha was evading its attacks so far, holding off the Defender of the Universe with one hand while still keeping its gaze fixed on Lotor’s fighter.

The Robeasts tactics changed, abruptly – all eight of them swarming towards the Atlas. Shiro felt his heartrate spike briefly, then regained his calm. The enemy had decided to go for the Alliance’s shield and smash it. Well, the Atlas was ready for them. They’d taken a planet-destroying blast and walked it off before. “All power to shields.” Their energy shields had been modified to at least partially counter the dark energy that the Robeasts used, so they could take a hit now.

Could they take eight, all at once?

One after another, they zoomed at the Atlas, from all different angles. “Iverson, designate the lead Robeast as T1. Focus target.” Otherwise they’d never down any of them.

T1 faltered under the barrage, but the other seven came past, striking the Atlas’s shields with beams and scythes. They peeled off, cutting a sickening swath through the fleet behind the Atlas, swinging around for another attack.

“Shield integrity at 42%,” Veronica reported, and Shiro gritted his teeth. They weren’t going to survive many waves of this.

“Keep focusing T1! Iverson, designate the rest T2 through 8 and send target information to each fleet! MFEs, target T2! Stay nimble, everyone!” While he wanted to take everything on with the Atlas, protect their allies who could definitely _not_ take any hits from a Robeast, wasn’t it one of Voltron’s tenets that they only succeeded through teamwork? If the Atlas died, there would be nothing to stop the Robeasts from tearing through the rest of the fleet. This way, some of the fleet was still going to die – there was nothing he could do about that – but far more would survive in the long run. There was a wave of explosions in the distance and his heart beat harder.

Then the second Robeast assault hit them, magenta energy scythes carving through what was left of the shield and into the hull. Shiro staggered, clinging to his console to remain upright. “Shield integrity at 11%!” Veronica called, the strain in her voice intensifying with every word.

“They got one!” Iverson roared triumphantly. “T2 is down!”

“Great work!” Shiro said. They weren’t invincible. Just seven more to go. And of those seven, three had been drawn away by the fleets, chasing after the MFEs and the big warships.

“We’re losing power!” Sam called from engineering. “Every attack is draining our crystal!”

“Here they come again!” Coran said.

“Iverson, fire!” Shiro yelled.

There was a series of explosions, and the Atlas rocked violently, sending Shiro flying to the right side of the room. There was a crackling and fizzling and a series of secondary explosions; the screens flickered, and gravity wavered for a moment. There was a sudden smell of smoke, and they were definitely no longer in war form.

“Sir!” Curtis exclaimed, jumping from his seat and falling to his knees beside him. Being seated had definitely helped him with the blast, maybe Shiro should get a chair for the captain’s post. But he liked to stand… “Sir, are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine. Damage report!” Shiro ordered, climbing unsteadily to his feet with Curtis’s help and coughing. His shoulder felt bruised behind his prosthetic joint and he felt blood trickling down his temple; he’d hit the wall full-on, unprepared.

“Shields down,” Veronica said. “Power at 38%, hull at 82%.” Shiro hissed in dismay. They’d lost that much power from one strike alone.

“Only three of the engines are online,” Coran said. “The planet’s gravity is going to draw us in within fifteen doboshes unless we can regain control of at least half.”

“We got one Robeast, though!” Iverson said. “Wait, what are they doing?”

“They’re… channeling the power they stole from us into Sincline!” Coran cried. “Oh, no!”

That was a _lot_ of power, judging by how their power crystal was like a tiny inert star. “MFEs, status?” Shiro said. “Could use you about now!”

“Sorry, sir!” Griffin responded. “Little tied up here ourselves!”

The Robeasts flexed their arms and legs, and bright beams arced from them to Sincline. Sincline beat Voltron back with its tail and turned to accept the power, growing a corona around its body. Without warning, it turned away from everything, and a magic circle began to form in space – but where was its centre? Something seemed wrong. Was this the part where she destroyed reality? The Atlas couldn’t take any more of this. “Allura, what’s that?”

Allura was silent a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was full of fear. “It’s a Quintessence siphon big enough to cover this entire _galaxy_. Shiro! We need to get away! At least get our fleets away!”

“Do it,” Shiro said, calculating rapidly. More circles were appearing around them, more power than he could fathom beaming into the distance. How were they going to stop this circle? Where was it drawing from? Honerva’s circles needed power to seize power, and they were _not_ letting her murder an entire galaxy. Could they do it by disorienting her? Usually they had to give her a pretty good shock to halt her rituals. “Belay that. All fleets, hit Sincline, _now_! Iverson, give me everything we have left!” He coughed again; the smoke was getting thicker.

Sincline seemed to vanish behind a massive cloud of explosions; the Atlas lurched and shuddered as the guns fired one last time, and then the lights flickered again.

“We’re in trouble!” Coran cried. “Descent accelerating!”

“If we can’t recover, just try and make the crash gentle,” Shiro told him. They’d given everything they could for this moment. If they could get things repaired enough, regenerate enough energy to get back into the fight, he’d take it, but Voltron was in a much better place to act now. “Voltron, it’s up to you!”

“Got it,” Keith said, and Voltron swerved towards the dissipating cloud – and flinched.

Sincline had shielded or dodged most of the barrage, and now an ominous magenta light appeared in the distance. It rapidly grew, spreading towards them, growing brighter as it came. How fast was it going? The speed of light was only – but this was _absolutely_ not the time for theoretical concerns.

“Oh no-” Allura began. “Get away, get away, get away! I’ll open portals if I can but _get away_!”

“No can do here,” Shiro said, watching Coran and feeling the Atlas struggling against Feyiv’s gravity. “Fleets, scatter!” Many other ships had been closer, and were caught up; about half the fleet was consumed, including two Robeasts, as the rest raced helter-skelter away. The light was brightening to white as it swept towards them, a giant wall covering the left side of the viewport. It slowed and halted handfuls of kilometers away; Shiro had to shade his eyes to look in that direction.

A horrible scream echoed over the comm; Sincline had snatched Lotor’s fighter in a claw and held it firmly; before they could react, Sincline slashed at the light with its staff and dove straight in to the rift that appeared in it.

Voltron’s pilots gave a collective horrified gasp and raced towards the rapidly widening gap in reality, and instantly Shiro lost connection.

“Oh quiznack,” Lance yelped. “The quintessence field!” They were surrounded by glowing gold, but though they felt physically rejuvenated as before, he would guess that every one of them had a really bad feeling in the pit of their stomach.

“Where’s Honerva?” Keith snapped.

“Got her!” Pidge cried, and off they went, chasing Sincline again. “Be gentle, that fighter’s brand new!”

“Also I’m in it,” Lotor said dryly, but Lance could hear the strain in his voice.

“Where’s she going!?” Hunk demanded. “It almost looks like she’s… looking for something.”

Allura must have been multitasking really hard. She was so smart. “She’s looking for another reality. Something to do with Lotor-”

“She’s looking for another me,” Lotor said flatly, having come to the same realization. “I’m not good enough for her. She’s broken me against her so much it’s not fun anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Honerva broke in, and Lance found a really disturbed look settling on his face. She sounded almost gentle and caring. “All I want is the family I could never have in this reality. Is that so much to ask? Only a little farther, and we’ll be rid of each other forever.” Her voice turned hard. “Unless you want me to destroy you as a parting gift, of course. You should turn back, Voltron. The rift will consume your universe without you to stop it.”

There was silence; Voltron still pursued Sincline.

“No,” Lotor said finally. “No, I will not let you inflict yourself upon another reality – upon another me! Haven’t you ruined enough? You and Zarkon made my life a living hell, you destroyed anything I ever dared grow attached to. _You_ destroyed Daibazal and Altea, whether you meant to or not. All the suffering and fear of the last ten thousand years – _they’re because of you!_ ” The gold-and-purple fighter’s engines flared dangerously, and with a horrible screech of metal, thrust free of Sincline’s tightening grip. “I’ll die before I let you control me again… whether in this reality or any other!”

“Get back here!” Honerva hissed, Sincline spinning and grabbing for the dangerously crippled fighter. “I’m… so… close!” Seizing the fighter before Voltron could intervene, even less gently than before – Lotor’s cry of physical pain and mental anguish echoed through the comm – Sincline shot forward, slashing at the Quintessence field, rending a gaping hole in it.

“Gotta go faster, guys!” Pidge said. “If that rift closes, we can’t follow her!”

“Give it your all!” Keith ordered, and Voltron zoomed towards the opening as Sincline clambered through. “It’s closing! She’s closing it!”

Just as Sincline slipped through, a giant red lion’s head reached through and grabbed its ankle.

“ _Get back here!_ ” Lance grunted, throwing Red into full reverse. They could see – the distinctive shape of Daibazal, alive and green and blue, dusted with clouds. Green braced against the edge of the portal – how an insubstantial divide between realities could have a hard enough edge to brace a giant mecha against, Lance didn’t know, but he was very glad Pidge was managing it.

“No – _no!!_ ” Honerva shrieked, turning to attack them with the staff.

“You’re not going anywhere, Honerva!” Keith said, as they dodged to one side. “You’re _our_ reality’s problem. You won’t harm another!”

“Let me go, Voltron, before you regret it! You return me to your reality, and I won’t rest until all of it is consumed before your eyes by the multiverse! Are you prepared to sacrifice your reality to save one you don’t even know, ‘Defender of the Universe’?”

“We’re not sacrificing anything!” Allura said, and Lance wanted to cheer. “We’re your equals here! We’ll drag you kicking and screaming back to _our_ reality and defeat you there, no matter what!”

Lotor had been chanting something indistinct, which now rose to audible pitch. “Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here…”

“Hang in there, buddy!” Lance called, still straining to pull Honerva through.

He swore Sincline turned its head to look at him specifically, then crushed Lotor’s fighter to bits in its grip.

“No!” they all cried, and the Green Lion shot out and snapped at the debris, trying to gather in anything left, praying there was still a living body among it. Honerva took advantage of their distraction and ripped away, heading towards the planet.

Voltron jumped through the rift after her, abusing its unsustainable super-speed to get in front of Sincline and blocking its way. They charged, but Sincline dodged, whipping them with its tail. Team Voltron yelled in defiance, as each mecha unleashed a flurry of blows on each other, leaving twining light-bleed trails through space. Sincline zipped around frenetically, striking at them from all angles; Voltron braced behind its shield and swung back with its sword when it could. All that mattered now was the fight, was surviving, was winning for the sake of this unsuspecting universe.

As they refused to get out of her way, as they refused to die, Sincline’s strikes became even more vicious, sucking energy out of them with every hit. Voltron bulled into Sincline, heedless of the energy drain going out from them, heedless of Sincline’s raking strikes against their arms and sides, of the tail wrapping about them and squeezing even more power from them. Just a little further, though they were so weak, and they’d be in the portal…

They pitched through together, and immediately felt a surge of energy. This was Sincline’s weakness now, to absorb energy until it overloaded. But Honerva, though furious, was not raving as Lotor had been when they fought here. She wouldn’t be so easily worn down. Besides…

“How the heck are we gonna seal the rift?” Lance demanded. “Explosions worked last time, but how do we…?”

“We don’t want to fire into it and accidentally hit Daibazal,” Pidge said.

“That won’t happen,” a hoarse, weary voice said over the comms.

“Lotor!” they cried. “You’re all right!” Lance said, genuinely happy.

“Are you _sure_??” Hunk asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” Lotor said patiently. “I studied this extensively and I have no wish to harm my alternate universe people. Only trans-reality material and quintessence can pass the portal. Give it your strongest shot!”

“It won’t do you any good,” Honerva snarled, ripping away from them, and immediately attacking. “I know where to look now. Once I kill you I’ll be right back.”

“You won’t win,” Allura said sternly. “Keith, do it!”

As one, they turned, ignoring Sincline, and blasted a blinding beam of light from the V on Voltron’s chest. It struck the portal at an angle, but it was enough. For a moment, Lance couldn’t see through his viewscreens, it was so bright. As he blinked and the light faded, they saw: the portal had disappeared.

Sincline struck them in the back, impaling them on the staff. They cried out in pain, flying forwards, but the Quintessence field healed them almost immediately. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Pidge said. “Just like last time!”

“But we’re not going to push her all the way back to the entrance rift, are we?” Hunk said.

“Just go,” Lotor said. “She wants our blood, and revenge, and the tying of loose ends. She knows better than to let an enemy live even if she believes herself to have attained everything she wanted and to be completely inaccessible.” His voice turned mocking. “Isn’t that right, Honerva?”

Honerva growled, and a purplish darkness rose behind her, gathering, swelling.

“HOLYQUIZNACKWHAT’STHAT!?!?” Lance screamed, pointing even though no one could see him.

“We’re getting out of here,” Keith said. Voltron about-faced hastily and spread its wings to race for the exit. Sincline turned to look at the dark mass, and followed them.

“We need to seal the rift once we emerge-” Allura began. “After we all emerge, and before that – that _thing_ emerges.”

“The rift entity can be contained, and even controlled,” Honerva said patronizingly, icy fury frightening Lance better than any heated rage could do. “Don’t fear it the way your father did.”

“ _That’s_ the rift entity we were told about!?” Pidge exclaimed. “Okay, now I know why he destroyed Daibazal!”

“Yep, officially terrified,” Hunk chimed in.

“Focus, team,” Keith said. “It’s not time for words now.” Time to commune with your Lions, he meant. Lance understood and closed his eyes, sinking deeper into the bond he’d developed with Red. She was so dramatic, and a little bitchy, way less chill than Blue, but he loved her anyway. And now he needed her power to escape this life-filled prison and destroy the entrance before the creature in it swallowed everything he cared about.

The exit was in sight, and they burst out among the flames and wreckage of war. So many ships were drifting in space, or pieces of ships, and also most of the Robeasts were drifting, inert. It wrenched his heart to see how much had been destroyed, and he didn’t want to know how many had died. But they didn’t have time to think about that now anyway, spinning around to meet Sincline’s charge-

The staff slammed back into them before their shield was ready, knocking them up and down and around, weakening them again with each hit. They couldn’t get anything back on Sincline; Honerva was determined to kill them _now_.

“We have to close the rift!” Allura cried. “Before the entity comes through!” God, it was a gaping mess, a visibly-expanding swirl of madness. And this time they had no castle-ship to sacrifice to it. Nor was their super-beam going to cut it.

“Easier said than done at this exact moment, I think,” Pidge said. “Oh, quiznack!”

Quiznack was putting it mildly, though really there was no word capable of describing this; everyone gasped in absolute horror as that purplish mass burst from the rift, surging towards them like an angry grape pudding.

Something white coalesced before it, appearing as a ghostly white lion that reared up to grapple with the entity. Was it just his imagination, or did he hear roaring…?

“No… I thought-” Honerva began, before giving a cry of anger and assaulting Voltron yet again. But this time, distracted though they were, Voltron slashed back and struck true.

Both mecha took their hits, lost power, and tumbled towards Feyiv.

Shiro shook his head, dazed, and tried to put the universe back together. Someone was helping him up and he accepted it, climbing unsteadily to his feet. They’d gone down on Feyiv after Voltron had left, unable to get the engines cooperating in time. Even though he’d gotten to the emergency crash position, he’d still been knocked unconscious. Now the deck was listing to starboard at 25 degrees, even more consoles were on fire, and the viewport was dead. Someone was under his arm, holding him up. He didn’t even have to look down to know who it was, the tendril-y sensation told him all he needed to know. And he was grateful for her support, both literal and figurative. “D-damage report.”

“We’re on back-up auxilliary power,” Sam reported from engineering, also sounding shaken. “It will take some time to regenerate enough to get anything running besides life support, lights, and diagnostics. I’m beginning repairs now, but don’t hold your breath.”

“Why should I? We’ve still got life support,” Shiro tried to joke. “Veronica? Coran?”

“Well, hull integrity is compromised,” Veronica said helplessly. “Even if we get the Atlas’ systems functioning, I wouldn’t recommend taking off in this state. Not without a _great_ many caveats.”

“I don’t think we’re much help to Voltron anymore,” Coran said. “We’ve done our part-”

The ship shook, twice. “What was that?” Shiro snapped, pulling upright; Elslince stepped back unobtrusively.

“Voltron and Sincline just crashed near our position, sir,” Curtis reported. “According to our remaining sensors, both are non-functional.”

Well, if that didn’t jolt his adrenaline back into battle-high, he didn’t know what did. “Are they alive? What about Lotor?” He’d been grabbed too.

“I don’t have that information,” Curtis said.

There was only one thing to do. “I’m heading out,” Shiro said. “Stay here and focus on repairing the ship.”

“I’m coming,” Veronica said. “I’ve got to check on Lance.”

“I’m coming too,” Elslince said. “You might need me.” She gave him a critical once-over, taking in the blood from his headwound. “You already need me.”

“I always need you,” he muttered, trying to be discrete with his unprofessionalism and failing terribly. He was distracted by the stars in her eyes, okay? And a head wound compromising his judgement. He caught a grin from Iverson and ignored it. “Veronica, stay with Elslince, just in case. Let’s go!”

He changed into the light-action spacesuit that had served him reasonably against Sendak, let Elslince clean off his head, and headed out. Outside was chilly; it was dusk, and overhead the wreckage of ships glittered among the stars, reflecting that white light of the white lion fighting the dark monster and the still-growing portal to another realm. Ahead of them lay Voltron; beyond it, the more curvacious form of Sincline. Both mecha were dark, no lights of any kind. But he could hear voices, and picked up his speed.

In the canyon carved by Sincline’s impact sliding away from Voltron, there were seven small figures. But the tallest and most slender were the ones facing each other. So both Honerva and Lotor had survived.

Honerva seemed to be too angry for words anymore, and Lotor watched her carefully. Shiro jogged up to stand next to Keith, holding out his arm to direct Veronica and Elslince to stay back. Veronica might be as brave as any Paladin, but this was out of her league.

“Finally, it comes to this,” Lotor said. “Whether I live or die, I will finally be free of you. And whether I live or die, my- my _friends_ will make sure that every other Lotor is also free of you.”

“You will never be free,” Honerva hissed. “What I made you into ensures you will always be alone – except for me.”

“Shut up!” yelled Allura. “Your torture ends here!”

“Come and finish it, then,” Honerva said, baring her teeth, and as one the Paladins drew their weapons and attacked. Shiro was beside them, his friends that he’d come all this way with, he wasn’t leaving them now.

And yet she was somehow supernaturally powerful, dodging every attack they made, parrying Allura’s whip and Lotor and Keith’s swords with strength equal to theirs, and that was when she wasn’t blinking through teleportation or shooting dark magic at them. She caught his prosthetic fist with an open palm and drove him back. This couldn’t be her natural strength, her natural speed. She was cheating somehow. Lance and Hunk were hesitating, unwilling to fire into the melee.

“You could have been my champion,” Honerva said to him, twisting his arm until he fell. “I took your disease from you. I gave you your arm, your training. I could have given you so much more. But you chose to rebel.” She channeled dark magic into him and he groaned in pain.

“Gee, I wonder why!” he gritted out, going for a leg sweep. She let go of him to block Keith’s incoming assault, fast and graceful; he would have admired her if he didn’t know to the very core of his soul how much he hated her. “Guess I just loved the idea of being a monster so much!” God, the idea of slavery under her ignited his spirit like little else did. Humans – living beings in general – just weren’t built to be controlled.

“Your wit does you little credit. The rest of you are children, playing with forces you don’t understand.”

“We’re not playing,” Keith gritted, forced back almost to his knees.

“Also we’re not children!” Pidge cried, firing her Bayard at her, tagteaming with Allura. “Children don’t go to war!”

Honerva blinked away from the binding cords seeking her, reappearing just beyond their reach. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen. You don’t know what I know.”

“I think we’re done listening to you,” Lance said, in that deadly serious voice that he used so rarely, that Shiro was glad not to hear from his young, happy-go-lucky-seeming friend. “You don’t know what _we’ve_ seen, either.”

“Nor do I care,” Honerva said, blinking away from his shot, and flinging a spell his way. Allura jumped in front, shield brandished, deflected it.

“No! Oh, no!” Pidge cried, and he followed her gaze to see the dark entity had overwhelmed the white lion.

“Stay calm!” Shiro told her. “Paladins, get back to Voltron, we’ll hold Honerva here!”

Before anyone could do anything, Honerva jumped back and swung her staff at the ground, flinging them back and creating a small crater before her. Shiro tumbled back head over heels; he wasn’t sure, but it looked like the only people able to keep their footing were Keith, Allura, and Lotor. She smiled and he felt a shudder. “I said you should not fear the rift entity, but… I think now would be a good time to start fearing it.” And even as they charged back to her, she lifted her arm and cried out.

The rift entity surged downwards, making contact with her arm, rushing into her body. How much was there!? It was a cloud of tiny purple-black lights, now that he was closer – closer than he wanted to be, if he were absolutely honest – a cloud as big as the Atlas. Honerva screamed as she absorbed it, and her body began to change, to grow larger, still recognizable as her but… a literal monster now.

“What the actual cheese sandwich with pickles on top,” Lance whispered.

“ _LotORrrRR!_ ” Honerva roared. Lotor stared up at her with frozen, unbelieving incomprehension as the last of the rift entity vanished into her; she was four or five times the size she had been, and her eyes glowed with purple light. Her stance was strange, her arms hanging as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. But then she moved, striking like lightning, and Keith shoved Lotor out of the way to catch her blow on his sword.

“How do we defeat her!?” he yelled, grunting, driven back effortlessly across the rocky ground. His hair was sticking to his face and Shiro wondered, not for the first time, how he could see well enough to fight.

“Uh, I got nothing!” Lance yelled back.

“Me either!” Pidge cried.

“Everyone!” Allura cried. “Give me your energy! Tell the fleet – tell everyone in the universe! Concentrate on me!”

“We’ll keep it away from you!” Keith said. “Hunk, Lance, go long!”

“Roger!”

Shiro turned to see Veronica and Elslince, sort of under cover, praying to Allura. He wished they were a lot further from the fight than they were, a lot further from the entity than they were, but at least the monster wasn’t looking in their direction. Allura stood with her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, and bright teal blue sparkles were beginning to stream in her direction from everywhere around then.

Well, then, time to go back on the assault. It wasn’t the first time he’d fought something much bigger than himself! They rushed her, Keith and Lotor and Pidge and him, their weapons flashing in the dark. Brilliant blue and yellow bolts sizzled down from the hillside where Lance and Hunk had taken positions, able to fire at the larger target with less concern of collateral damage. Though a yellow grenade struck her in the back and exploded, though a trio of sniper shots struck her in the head, she simply shook them off and swatted at Keith as if she barely felt them. It seemed she hadn’t lost her mental faculties in her transformation, and her gaze was fixed on Allura.

Shiro felt adrenaline surging through him. The last time he’d felt this way was when he was fighting Sendak or Zarkon himself. She pursued them, and he dashed and rolled out of her reach, narrowly dodging her blows. He could hear the air whistle past him as she missed, felt the breath rasping in his throat, hardly felt the slight injuries he’d taken earlier.

Pidge, trying to trip her up with her Bayard, was smacked aside; she flew fifty meters with a squawk and landed with a thud. “Pidge!” Shiro yelled. She didn’t answer.

“I’ll check on her!” Hunk said.

“No, keep fighting!” He wanted to know that Pidge was okay, he really did. But they couldn’t lose two fighters for the price of one. Not now. Every moment, the monster got closer. “Keith!”

“I read you!” Together they charged, shoulder to shoulder, determined to halt her there, to drive her back… somehow… physically, if possible, for certainly it was necessary. She ignored Keith, but a giant hand closed about Shiro even as he dodged and squeezed, and he felt ribs pop. He suddenly felt very fragile, wondering how much more he could take before his spine broke. But while she was crushing him to death she wasn’t stepping on Keith or punching Allura.

Keith slashed, and another shot struck her in the head, though Hunk stopped firing, and Honerva dropped him before she could kill him; he landed heavily and with a cry of pain, trying not to breathe too hard. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead. But he couldn’t lie here. Even if she didn’t step on him, he couldn’t just curl in a ball while there was still fight in him.

True, there wasn’t a _lot_ of fight left in him, and he really hoped that Elslince was still focusing on Allura and not watching. But just knowing she was there, nearby, in danger, dragged him to his feet yet again. She’d saved him so many times. Just let him save her once more…

Without warning, a brilliant teal-blue light blossomed behind him, and a beam blasted the giant Honerva, knocking her back, sending a shockwave through them all. The giant screeched, darkness boiling away from its skin in that dazzling light. He turned to see Allura channeling all those sparkles, everyone’s hopes and dreams and prayers, into a massive blast of _life_ , willingly given, and gratefully taken.

She put a hand Lotor’s shoulder. “Now.”

“For Narti!” Lotor sprang forwards, dodging the monster’s last, clumsy blows, leapt up through Shiro’s two-handed stirrup boost, and stabbed, his blade glowing blue with the same energy. He landed several feet behind and rolled, coming up in a guard position, but there was no need. The monster wailed, shrinking, the last darkness flowing out of it through the wound. Darkness… and blood.

Honerva collapsed to one knee, panting, sweating, her hair disheveled under her headdress. Even as she made a move with one hand, whether to attack them or heal herself, something seemed to snap in her and she collapsed with a cry.

More magic flowed from her, but this was not dark. In fact, it seemed to have colours… It formed into the likenesses of aliens, a tall and elegant green woman, a big blue man with a big grin, another big man in yellow with a square jaw and fantastic hair, and… Zarkon. But not Zarkon as Shiro had known him, an implacable heartless granite-faced tyrant, but just a really big buff Galra with a slightly awkward air. And right now he looked grieved, looking at Honerva.

So focused Shiro was on trying to figure out what was different with this Zarkon, that he almost missed the last figure, a handsome, knightly Altean with a familiar cocky smile, until Allura choked. “F-father…?”

“You did it,” said the ghost, smiling at her. “Thank you.”

And all five disappeared, fading from view.

“Father!” Allura cried, but she was smiling through her sudden tears. “You’re welcome.”

Honerva collapsed to the ground onto her back as Lotor stalked around to see her. “So you did win, in the end,” she whispered. “Well… done.”

“Don’t you _quiznacking_ ‘well done’ me,” Lotor growled, shaking. “You never cared for me, don’t pretend to now.”

“You were always… the most… precious one to me… my son,” Honerva gasped. “My legacy… the old Paladins… they will live on in all of you.”

Lotor stood over her, darkness and hurt and rage clouding his face. “You liar. I was nothing more to you than a toy.” He turned away to march off, drowning in angst. “Nothing of _you_ will live in anyone!”

“Lotor!” Shiro shouted, jumping forward. And he grunted, as Honerva’s last spell struck him in the gut.

As he clutched his stomach, staggering, Honerva’s head rolled back and she sighed. Dead for good this time? Fingers crossed? It hurt so much, the pain spreading through him. An old, familiar pain. It was like when she used to torture him, in his lost memories, but worse. He could dimly hear the others calling his name, saw Allura and Elslince kneeling over him, looking worried, talking urgently to each other. But he couldn’t hold on anymore…

Hunk stumped up, carrying Pidge in his arms. “I don’t want to interrupt, because I’m worried about Shiro too, but what about the portal?” he said anxiously, gazing up at it. It stretched across the sky now, and Lance felt like it was getting closer by the tick. They’d probably waited too long on it. Was the universe going to get destroyed anyway, even though they’d won? Nah, they had to have hope. Someone would come up with something. Maybe even him!

Allura sighed as she looked up from Shiro’s body. “It’s always easier to destroy than to create… and easier to open than to seal.”

“Gosh, that is so true,” Hunk said. “Especially those fancy old-fashioned soda-pop bottles with the screw tops, I can never get those to go back on right…”

“You’re such a dork,” Pidge said, opening her eyes. “I can stand now, thanks.”

Allura stared at him for a minute. “…Anyway, I think I know how we can deal with this, without an explosion that will, say, shatter Feyiv and the surrounding galaxy.”

“Voltron?” Lance asked hopefully.

Allura smiled at him and he felt his spirits returning. “Voltron. And magic. That I’ve never tried before. But with the energy of everyone in the universe…”

“Try something new every day,” Lance said, and hugged her proudly. “You can do it! Let’s get to our Lions!”

“Why did you do that? For me?” Lotor asked.

Shiro cracked open his eyes and glared at him. “You sure pick the lightest of topics for a wake-up call.”

Lotor didn’t know what to do with that and dropped his gaze to his hands.

“By the way, who’s Narti?” Lotor had yelled something before his final attack…

Lotor sighed sadly. “A dear friend… who Honerva destroyed in the same way she tried to destroy you. I will forever blame myself for her death… but now I know who it was who killed her.”

“ _Shiro!_ ” Elslince squealed, bursting through the door, interrupting the moment. “Thank the trees, _finally!_ I just _knew_ you were going to do something like that!”

“Like what?” he asked, still groggy. “Try to kill myself?” He poked his belly and felt a small crater under the bandages. Great, another one for the collection. But his ribs felt wierdly okay. Had Allura healed them or something? “Would I do that?”

“ _Would you do that_ – Takashi Shirogane you have a lot of nerve-” Elslince coughed and recovered her composure. God, she was adorable when she was pretending to be angry. “I mean, it was all Honerva’s fault, with that cheap final shot. You should answer Lotor’s question, though. He’s been spending a lot of time in here.”

“Huh? Oh.” He looked back at Lotor, who was looking strangely shy. “Why not? You’ve decided to live, haven’t you?”

“Y-yes, but… I would not ask anyone to sacrifice themselves for _that_ … for _me_ …”

“That’s why you didn’t have to ask,” Shiro said cheerfully. “I did it anyway.”

Lotor seemed lost.

“It’s all right,” Lance said from the door. “This is called ‘having friends’, you paranoid dork.”

“And usually it’s not so dramatic,” Hunk said. “Hey, Shiro!”

“Hey, guys,” Shiro said. “Glad you all made it.”

“You’re very lucky Elslince was there,” Keith scolded him, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking far more annoyed than he actually felt.

“Just so you know, we got the Atlas repaired,” Pidge said. “Enough to take off and head for Earth. Which is why your bed isn’t tilted.”

“But the lions…” Allura began, and everyone stopped.

Shiro looked up anxiously at them. “What about the lions?”

“We were sealing the rift, but before it was done, Voltron split up into lions,” Keith said. “They ejected us, and then they kind of looked at us, and then… flew away into the rift. And then it closed.”

“We all felt them say goodbye,” Lance said, mournfully. “We’ll miss ’em.”

“I see,” Shiro said, absorbing that. “Well… that’s good, right?”

“Huh?” Hunk looked at him.

Shiro smiled. “It means they know we don’t need them anymore. We’re on our own now. And we can handle it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Keith said. “I got that feeling myself.”

“We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do,” Pidge said, beaming. “I can’t wait!”

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “Yeah, me either.” He looked at Elslince and her beautiful smile, her starry blue eyes and swirling hair, and for the first time he couldn’t help but notice she was starting to show. “And we better get to work right away!”


	15. Epilogue: Space Dad, For Real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually don’t like lasagna. I like pasta, I like cake, pasta-cake does nothing for me. I’m no doubt on Hunk’s “do not trust” list lol.

Epilogue: Space Dad, For Real

“Teacher! Teacher! Wait for me!” A desperate wail echoed through the white vaulted halls of New Altea’s Pilot Training Centre as a young Olkari dashed towards the light of the hangar mouth.

“Teacher’s already in the air, so you better hurry up!” an older Altean scolded the youngster.

“Ahhhh! Noooo!” The girl finally reached the crowd of other pilot trainees and squeezed her way to the front – she was short, and if she wasn’t in front, she’d never even catch a glimpse of her beloved teacher!

The fields of New Altea stretched out before her, green and peaceful in the wind, dotted with the pink juniberry flowers that had been resurrected by Colleen Holt. They’d found the planet together five deca-phoebs ago, the Altean remnent and the Olkari refugees, and settled it together, forming two intertwined nations in one city. Perhaps soon they’d have enough people to make _two_ cities! While the Olkari outnumbered the Alteans by magnitudes, there was no denying that the long-lost people pulled their weight. And besides…

The young Olkari snuck a look to her left, since she couldn’t see Teacher yet. There was the new leader of the Olkari, Fellil, and… the beautiful young Altean Queen, Allura, Hero of Voltron. They didn’t always come watch, but today Teacher was flying, and Queen Allura, at least, didn’t miss that if she could. She was wearing pants today, but her hair was down. The young Olkari didn’t understand hair, but Allura’s was really pretty… _and_ she was a hero…

A rumble from the skies drew her attention… There! There was the sleek white fighter-jet, twisting across the teal-blue skies, looping and spinning and pulling stunts she definitely wasn’t capable of just yet. She gasped, as many of the other pilot trainees cheered, and across the PA she heard a long drawn-out “Wahoooooooo!” She giggled. Teacher loved flying. “Okay, pay attention kids, this part’s really tricky!”

The fighter continued its dazzling one-ship-airshow for a while, before coming in for a landing in front of the Queen and the Olkari prime minister. The canopy popped, and the pilot dropped lightly to the ground. Teacher was so skinny, the girl reflected, sneaking a little closer.

“Did ya like it, ‘Llura?” Teacher was asking with a big cocky grin on his face. Altean markings glowed dimly on his face, even though he himself wasn’t Altean. No one could explain how they got there… at least no one who told her.

Allura leaned in to kiss him. “I always like watching you fly, Lance. But you’d better be quick about training your new recruits, Memorial Day is coming quickly.” The most important day of the year, the day they remembered those lost on Old Altea, on Olkari, and also from Daibazal and the war in general, with special notice given to those who died in living memory. They always did an airshow, and Teacher always flew his best that day.

“I know, I know. Hey, Fellil, how’s the fam? Oh hey! Look who it is! Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man, come out of retirement? How’re the yalmor?”

“Not really!” Coran said, heedless of the mice doing a cheerleader routine on his head. “I’m still retired! The yalmor are all doing well, thank you. I came to visit Allura and see how everyone’s getting on.”

Allura wrapped an arm around her husband and dragged him a little closer. “This isn’t the time to catch up now, but I’ve arranged for us to have dinner this evening, if that’s all right?”

Lance kissed her. They were so romantic! “Of course it’s all right. Now… I’ve got a class to teach, so I’ll see you later!”

“Dad, how did Uncle Lance get a cow in space again?” Sylvio asked, mucking out Kaltenecker’s stable.

“Something about a space mall?” Luis answered, really not sure of the answer anymore after all this time.

Kaltenecker chewed thoughtfully.

“That’s weird,” Sylvio said. “I wonder what else you can get at a space mall?”

“Beats me,” Luis said. “I’m sure you’ll find out someday. But we can head to the mall later and see if they have the new Voltron series on crystal matrix array if you and your sister finish all your chores!”

“Whoo!”

Kaltenecker mooed.

“Well, boss, we got ’em right where we want ’em,” Zethrid proclaimed proudly, hands on her hips.

“Without even killing anyone this time!” her wife said cheerfully.

Lotor considered burying his face in his hands and settled for an affronted sigh. “You really shouldn’t have to clarify. It’s disturbing.” Their time as pirates… their time after he betrayed them… had left them with a harder edge even than they’d had when he found them as angry orphans. He spent a lot of energy directing that edge to not cut anything important. Especially as the Prince of the Galra – they’d had enough of emperors, in his opinion – he needed a dearth of diplomatic incidents during his first decade, to make up for the chaos before it.

“Aww, we just wanna tease you,” Ezor said, sticking out her tongue. “You’re the best boss ever!”

Even now, such proclamations left him feeling awkward and guilty. Also, he wasn’t technically their boss, they were freelance mercenaries that he just happened to employ on a permanent basis… “Er…”

“The normal thing to say in such situations is ‘thank you’, whether you mean it or not,” Acxa said, entering without looking up from her datapad. “Although to these two I can understand…”

“Acxa, you’re so mean!” Ezor pouted.

“I do appreciate their sentiments,” Lotor said, sincere at first, and then dry, “although since their only other comparison is Haggar, I’m not sure how much I should read into it…”

Zethrid snorted. “That’s stupid. Anyway, you’ve even changed since then. For the better, mostly.”

“And so have we,” Acxa said, finally lifting her eyes to his, incredible, gorgeous blue eyes that sent shocks running through him whenever he had the courage to meet them. It seemed today was a good day, and he met her gaze and held it, staring at her until an indigo blush dusted her ice blue cheeks. “W-what are you looking at!?”

“I love you,” he blurted out, then stopped, horrified. He hadn’t meant to say it yet. He’d meant to do all the right things first, invite her out to dinner, bring her flowers, go for a long walk on one of Feyiv’s beaches – _as if you’d have the guts to do any of that_ , the little voice in his head told him. But certainly not randomly in the middle of a strategy meeting.

It was Acxa’s turn to stare, while Zethrid laughed uproariously and Ezor squealed giddily. “W-what!?”

It was too late to take it back. What had Doctor Elslince said about him? He liked to gamble? Nothing but to double down, heart pounding. Try a sexy smirk, though he felt it came out twisted and sickly. “You heard me.” By Daibazal, he couldn’t do anything right.

Acxa’s blush spread all over her face. “You- you sappy idiot beanpole-!!” Wait, was she really angry? Had he made a mistake after all?

She stomped towards him and flung herself bodily at him, knocking him and his office chair over backwards, and her lips were on his, and her hands tangled in his long white hair…

“We’ll be back later!” Ezor yelled, and he heard the office door close.

When she let him go, he was gasping for air and staring, his brain refusing to process what was happening. “W-wha… I… Are you-”

“You’re so stupid,” Acxa whispered, holding him like she was afraid she was going to break him.

Maybe she was. She could if she wanted. And yet… he trusted her. “I didn’t think you loved me back. I was afraid-”

“I didn’t. Until you came back from the dead. Idiot.” She glared at him and kissed him again.

Stars, was this what happiness felt like?

“Order up!” Hunk yelled.

“I got it!” Nyma yelled back, nimbly roller-skating around customers clustered at tables outside the _Rusty Rainbow_ , the ship that Hunk designed, built, and co-captained with his partner-in-crime and fellow ex-Paladin. “Got a personal request from a lovely lady who wants to meet the cook!”

“Nope! Too busy.” _If it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t coming out of this kitchen_.

“She’s really insistent,” Nyma said, leaning through the order window and grinning mischievously. “Says you’ve outdone yourself this time.”

“This time…” Hunk squinted suspiciously at her. “Okay, just a tick, though! And you better keep serving!”

“She’s at table twelve,” Nyma said with a wink, and skated away with the serving of lasagna – one of Hunk’s goals was to bring human foods to the galaxy, although there was blue alien meat in the omnivorous version and purple alien mushrooms in the vegetarian option. But everybody liked lasagna. Except weird people.

Hunk sighed and rolled his eyes – people were always asking to meet him – and stepped out of the kitchen to see… “Shay! Oh my gosh, she could have mentioned your name!”

“It is all right,” Shay said, picking him up in a big hug. “It is good to see you again, Hunk! I am glad to see your restaurant-ship is taking off – so to speak.”

“It really is. We did catering at a really big Bi-Bi social function a couple phoebs ago, so people are getting to know us! Oh, but I can’t stay out here for long. Lots of people to serve! Will you be around after we close?”

“Yes, I will be here,” Shay said cheerfully.

“Great! You can tell me what you’re up to then. Hey, you should go see Pidge in the meantime, I bet she’s not as busy! Gotta run!”

“I wish you success!” Shay called, then headed over to the main hatch, which was guarded by a man with two prosthetic legs – really nice legs, actually, they looked like Paladin Shiro’s – he might have stopped being a Paladin before the war was over, but she always thought of him as Paladin Shiro.

The man stopped her. “Oi, what business do you have in here?”

“Sorry, I am a friend of Hunk,” Shay said, wondering if he were new. “And of Pidge.”

The man narrowed his eyes at her. “Sure, everyone says that.”

“ _Rolo_!” came an exasperated sigh, and Nyma skated up to them. “Sorry, Shay! He was getting fitted with his new legs last time you were here. Rolo, she’s a friend, really. Let her visit Pidge!”

“Okay, okay,” Rolo said with a shrug and a ‘no skin off my back’ smile. “If you can get the pipsqueak to notice you…”

“I will be fine, thank you,” Shay said, confused. She stepped into the ship, which was a little small and compact for her, though not uncomfortably so, and headed forward for Pidge’s lab. “Hello? Pidge?”

Pidge jumped, turned off her soldering iron, and turned, pushing her goggles up her forehead. She was kind of adorable with them holding her hair back, even though she’d matured into an adult young human woman. “Hey! Shay! How are you?” The robot next to her beeped happily.

“I am very well,” Shay said. “And you?”

“Oh, I’m great. Wasn’t expecting to see you around here, what are you up to?”

“I have been exploring the universe,” Shay said. “I was a little sad when you left Earth a year ago, though my Balmera came to live near your planet. But my brother told me that I did not have to stay if I wanted to go, and he was right, so I went out to be like you – an adventurer!”

“Aww, that’s so awesome!” Pidge said, giving her a hug. Shay hugged her more gently than she’d hugged Hunk. “Did you eat yet?”

“I have already tried Hunk’s food, and it was delicious,” Shay said. “It is even better than when you left. I think now that he has had more time to focus on it, he is even more masterful than before.”

“You’re probably right,” Pidge said reflectively. “I’m used to it, sadly, haha.” And the empty crisp bags scattered around the floor suggested that she sustained herself on other foods as well. Though that was not necessarily an indication of poor taste.

“And what are you working on?” Shay asked, looking at all the circuit boards scattered around.

“A robot,” Pidge said nonchalantly. “Beezer’s great, but he’s not designed for the sort of work I do, right? You remember what I do, right? I write programs for space explorers. Or just whatever the hell I want, because this is a cutting-edge lab, I do what I want.” Shay giggled. “Also Beezer technically belongs to Rolo and Nyma, and they’re hired crew, so if we ever split up, I wouldn’t be able to hang out with him anymore.” The robot beside her made a sad noise and its ears drooped. “So I’m making a little flying office assistant. I’m going to name him Sparky!” The robot beside her perked up and made a triumphant noise. “I think Beezer likes the idea of having a new friend, too.”

“That is wonderful,” Shay said. “You are so clever, Pidge.”

Pidge turned to her with that excited light in her eyes. “Why don’t you come with us? You want to see the universe, right?”

Shay considered that carefully, turning the idea over from all angles. She always took her time, but apparently she took a long time by Pidge’s standards, because well before she was done, the happy look on Pidge’s face faltered. “Shay?”

“Shh,” Shay said. “I am thinking. It may be some time.”

“Okay,” Pidge said. “I’ll be here when you’re done!” And she flipped down her goggles and got back to work.

It was several minutes later that Shay cleared her throat. “I have decided.”

Pidge raised her eyebrows at her over her goggles. “And?”

“I will come with you! But sometimes I will want to go home, so I will not always be with you. But as long as you are willing to have me, I would like to come!”

“That’s great!” Pidge said, gesticulating, then suddenly realizing that was probably a bad idea with a powered soldering iron. “I mean, I’m happy. And Hunk will be really happy. Let’s surprise him when he comes in after the restaurant closes!”

“Yes!”

Krolia opened the door to the office of the Commander of the Blade of Marmora, which was a much longer sentence than she had patience to say normally. “Keith.”

“Yes, mom.”

“Did you drill the new recruits?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Did you remind them that Cosmo can teleport?”

“No, I didn’t think it needed to be said.”

“They saw you and Cosmo teleport after the morning meal. Now they are saying that _you_ can teleport. They are afraid you spy on them at all hours of the day… or that you might if you wished.” She paused, but Keith just stared at her. “How do you wish to deal with it? It could be a distraction.”

Keith blinked for a minute, then grinned. “Let them think that. Can’t hurt. And if they find out it’s Cosmo… well, I never told them it wasn’t.”

Krolia smiled. She’d been a little worried, deep down, when her son succeeded Kolivan as the leader of the Blades. Only a little; he’d more than proven himself as a Blade and as the Black Paladin. But every mother worries a little, deep down, always. Kolivan had gone to Feyiv to advise Prince Lotor, and with the rest of the Blades as junior and disorganized as they were, Keith had been the obvious choice. He hadn’t give either her or Kolivan a moment to regret it, and she knew he never would. “Then I will say nothing, and let them whisper.”

“Is that all you got, Griffin?” Shiro taunted the radio, weaving in and out of asteroids in an MFE.

“You wish, sir!” came the retort, and Shiro grinned as Griffin’s fighter juiced the thrusters, blasting past him. “Bet you wish you’d stayed home, old man!”

“Just because my hair is white, doesn’t mean I’m old,” Shiro said patiently, biding his time. “It just means I’m exotic.”

“That what your wife tells you?”

“That is exactly what she tells me.” There! He slammed the throttle forwards, accelerating just as Griffin was putting on the brake to arc around a particularly large asteroid – but Shiro shot beneath it, taking a space that _looked_ too small for an MFE to fit through. And there was the hangar of the Atlas, just beyond.

Griffin made the trip around the asteroid and tucked in behind his tail, growling. “Grah! You win again! I think you cheated.”

“I’m just that good, Griffin. Good flight, though.”

“Good flight, sir.”

They landed, climbed out, and jogged to meet with Sam Holt. “How is it?” the engineer asked anxiously.

“Flies great,” Shiro said, running a hand through his slightly damp hair. “Nice and smooth on the controls, responsive with the throttle.” He didn’t _have_ to help out with test-flying new fighters… but sometimes it was nice to actually get out there for a change and _fly_. Since being on a spaceship, being captain of said spaceship, made it nigh-impossible to sneak off with flight-bikes after-hours, and the simulators just weren’t the same.

“A noticeable upgrade over the last-generation MFEs,” Griffin said. “You’re making more, right?”

“Good, good! Yes, of course I am. But I-”

“Daddy!” came a cry. “Daddy Daddy Daddy!”

Shiro turned to scoop up his daughter and spin her around in the air. “Hey, sweetheart! Did you see Daddy fly?”

“Yeah! Daddy flew fast! I wanna fly! On the real spaceship!”

“You will, someday,” Shiro said. Hana was obsessed with the fighters, although she was only allowed in the hangar under strict supervision, and she pestered all the pilots in their off-duty time. She was much too small to reach the controls in the sims, but he let her ride on his lap sometimes.

Griffin grimaced. “I still don’t think a warship is a good place to raise children… sir.”

Shiro shrugged and settled his daughter on his hip. “We’re not technically a _war_ ship anymore, if you recall…” Griffin shrugged, unperturbed by the distinction. While the cannons and armour remained, the hangars filled with new MFEs and their wisecracking pilots, much of the ship’s interior had been converted to filling a ‘first-responder’ role. Their shuttle complement rivaled their fighter complement, and Sam had been developing all kinds of shiny new toys to react to any kind of situation: natural disasters, pirates, unexplained cosmic phenomena. Of course, he wasn’t alone – Slav was still on the ship, complaining constantly, happy as a clam, and they were joined by several other engineers. “Well, if you don’t need me anymore, I’ll be off. Let’s go to the bridge, Hana.”

“Go, Daddy, go!”

His daughter was the most precious person in his life, rivaled only by his son. They both had incredible blue eyes and jet black hair, and their skin colour was pink-brown, not green. They _looked_ completely human… unless you were watching their hair in a still room. He could tell they were both going to be heartbreakers when they grew up, but for now they were just precious beans.

He entered the bridge and nodded to the crew, Curtis, Veronica, Iverson still in their old roles, awaiting orders. Hana waved cheerfully to them.

“How was the MFE test, sir?” Iverson asked.

“It was great,” Shiro said, unable to hide a grin, not that he tried very hard, and stepped up to the captain’s console. “Romelle, set course for the Hallas Nebula.”

Romelle, the new helmswoman now that Coran had retired, stared wide-eyed at him in concern. “But that’s dangerous territory, Captain. It’s never been properly charted, and it’s highly likely to be inhabited by pirates.”

“All the more reason to go there,” Shiro said. “It’s awfully close to Ussaron, and those people don’t need any more trouble after the tsunamis. And if we’re afraid to go in the Atlas, who else is going to go? We’ll just check it out, eliminate any hostiles, identify any potential scientific issues, and report back to them.” Easier said than done, but he hadn’t signed up for this to be _easy_.

“Yes, sir. Laying in course now.”

When he was off-shift, he headed down to the Medbay, which was a regular traveling space hospital at this point, and renowned for the gardens that Elslince, Colleen, two other Telerans and a Balmeran tended there. Elslince’s office alone was half-jungle by this point. He had to admit it smelled great, and it was very soothing, even if he was slightly concerned about dirt getting where it really wasn’t supposed to be. The trauma centres were certainly plant-free; Elslince was as strict on that as any other doctor on board. But so far, the gardeners had been reasonably careful, and her favourite pink flowers – the ones he’d given her years ago – now spilled sweetly from the pot on the shelf closest to her.

He sat with her on her consulting couch, and told her about their next destination as the children played with blocks on the floor. “It’s so upsetting that people still turn to piracy even now,” Elslince said, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“There are always cruel and selfish people in the universe,” he said, putting his arm around his beautiful, vibrant, green wife and letting her snuggle closer. He loved feeling her body against him, her curves, the texture of her skin, the sinuous coils of her hair. “We got rid of a huge amount of conflict in ending Zarkon and those who followed him most closely, but new people get bad ideas every day.” Their work was never done, and it never would be, no matter what he did, no matter how hard he hoped. He had a couple new scars to attest to that. It was the worst part of his job, as it always had been – to see those starry eyes filled with worry and fear as he bled all over her emergency room. But he didn’t mind how she fluttered over him while he recovered, how she tenderly traced his scars old and new, how she would lean her forehead against his. And he had the luxury to actually heal properly between missions… usually.

“At least with pirates, we have a better chance of solving things without loss of life…” Elslince turned those starry eyes on him, the light in them indicating she was changing the subject. “Neh, neh, Takashi, when are we going back to Earth?” It had been three years, the same age as Telscar, their younger child, and she had a point. They’d visited Teler the year before, and though her great-grandfather had passed away since their wedding, the planet was reviving swiftly from their 50-year oppression and resistance. She’d been stunned by the changes, and he’d almost left her and the kids there to live quietly – more quietly than on a spaceship, at least – but she’d followed him still, and he was grateful.

“Uh… soon, I guess, if I can find a responsible reason to? Why?”

“Your mother has been asking after the kids, and we need to unload a bunch of cuttings that would be invasive species on any other planet.”

“And you miss it too,” he teased her. “Don’t deny it!”

“Don’t you?” she retorted.

“I wanna see Earf,” Telscar said around his thumb, looking up at them.

“Me too, Daddy!” Hana said. “Mommy, I wanna go to Earth!”

He smiled. “But I have all of you. I’m all set.” Elslince swatted at him for being cheesy, yellow rising to her cheeks. “Look, El, kids, we’ll do it right after we’re done the next mission, okay?”

“Yay!” came the delighted chorus from the floor.

“Maybe we’ll see Matt,” he mused. “Haven’t seen him since he got married couple years ago.” Matt Holt had married his space-girlfriend and gone off with her to live an incredibly busy life similar to Pidge, as a traveling mercenary scientist. Shiro didn’t understand it, but Matt knew there was always a place on the Atlas if he got tired of it.

“That would be nice,” Elslince said peacefully.

He watched the children play for a while. Hana was the noisier of the two verbally, narrating her tower construction to herself, but Telscar liked to knock over towers of blocks and make crashing noises.

“Credit for your thoughts?” Elslince asked.

“My thoughts are all sappy,” Shiro said. “I have the perfect life, you know?”

“Shut up, _I_ have the perfect life.”

“No, _I_ have the perfect life.”

“No, _I_ have- mmph.”

Shiro had kissed her. “I win.”

“Cheater!” But she was smiling, and kissed him again.


End file.
